Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives

C. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY WAS PROBABLY ASSASSINATED
AS A RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY. THE COMMITTEE IS UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE OTHER GUNMAN OR THE EXTENT OF THE CONSPIRACY

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once simply defined
conspiracy as "a partnership in criminal purposes." (1) That definition
is adequate. Nevertheless, it may be helpful to set out a more
precise definition. If two or more individuals agreed to take action
to kill President Kennedy, and at least one of them took action in furtherance
of the plan, and it resulted in President Kennedy's death,
the President would have been assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.

The committee recognizes, of course, that while the work "conspiracy"
technically denotes only a "partnership in criminal purposes," it also,
in fact, connotes widely varying meanings to many people, and its use has vastly
differing societal implications depending upon the sophistication, extent and ultimate purpose of the
partnership. For example, a conspiracy to assassinate a President might
be a complex plot orchestrated by foreign political powers; it might be the
scheme of a group of American citizens dissatisfied with particular
governmental policies; it also might be the plan of two largely isolated
individuals with no readily discernible motive.

Conspiracies may easily range, therefore, from those with important
implications for social or governmental institutions to those with no
major societal significance. As the evidence concerning the probability
that President Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a "conspiracy"
is analyzed, these various connotations of the word "conspiracy" and
distinctions between them ought to be constantly borne in mind. Here,
as elsewhere, words must be used carefully, lest people be misled.1

A conspiracy cannot be said to have existed in Dealey Plaza unless
evidence exists from which, in Justice Holmes' words, a "partnership
in criminal purposes" may be inferred. The Warren Commission's
conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was not involved in a conspiracy
to assassinate the President was, for example, largely based on its
findings of the absence of evidence of significant association (2) between
Oswald and other possible conspirators and no physical evidence of conspiracy.(3)
The Commission reasoned, quite rightly, that in the absence of association or physical evidence, there was no
conspiracy.

Even without physical evidence of conspiracy at the scene of the
assassination, there would, of course, be a conspiracy if others assisted
Oswald in his efforts. Accordingly, an examination of Oswald's associates
is necessary. The Warren Commission recognized that a first
premise in a finding of conspiracy may be a finding of association.
Because the Commission did not find any significant Oswald associ-

1It might be suggested that because of the widely varying
meanings attached to the word "conspiracy," it ought to be avoided. Such a suggestion,
however, raises another objection-- the search for euphemistic variations can lead to a lack of candor.
There is virtue in seeing something for what it is, even if the plain truth causes discomfort.

Page 96

ates, it was not compelled to face the difficult questions posed by such
a finding. More than association is required to establish conspiracy. There must be at least knowing assistance or a manifestation of
agreement to the criminal purpose by the associate.

It is important to realize, too, that the term "associate" may connote
widely varying meanings to different people. A person's associate
may be his next door neighbor and vacation companion, or it may be
an individual he has met only once for the purpose of discussing a
contract for a murder. The Warren Commission examined Oswald's
past and concluded he was essentially a loner. (4) It reasoned, therefore,
that since Oswald had no significant associations with persons
who could have been involved with him in the assassination, there
could not have been a conspiracy. (5)

With respect to Jack Ruby, 2 the Warren Commission similarly
found no significant associations, either between Ruby and Oswald or
between Ruby and others who might have been conspirators with
him. (8) In particular, it found no connections between Ruby and organized
crime, and it reasoned that absent such associations, there was
no conspiracy to kill Oswald or the president. (9)

The committee conducted a three-pronged investigation of conspiracy in
the Kennedy assassination. On the basis of extensive scientific analysis
and an analysis of the testimony of Dealey Plaza witnesses, the committee
found there was a high probability that two gunmen fired at President Kennedy.

Second, the committee explored Oswald's and Ruby's contact for
any evidence of significant associations. Unlike the Warren Commission,
it found certain of these contacts to be of investigative significance.
The Commission apparently had looked for evidence of conspiratorial association.
Finding none on the face of the associations it investigated, it did not go further.
The committee, however, conducted a wider ranging investigation. Notwithstanding the
possibility of a benign reason for contact between Oswald or Ruby and one
of their associates, the committee examined the very fact of the contact
to see if it contained investigative significance. Unlike the Warren
Commission, the committee took a close look at the associates to determine whether
conspiratorial activity in the assassination could have
been possible, given what the committee could learn about the associates,
and whether the apparent nature of the contact should, therefore,
be examined more closely. 3

Third, the committee examined groups-- political organizations, national
governments and so on--that might have had the motive, opportunity
and means to assassinate the President.

The committee, therefore, directly introduced the hypothesis of
conspiracy and investigated it with reference to known facts to determine
if it had any bearing on the assassination.

2The Warren Commission devoted its Appendix XVI to a
biography of Jack Ruby in which his family background, psychological makeup, education and
business activities were considered. While the evidence was sometimes contradictory, the
Commission found that Ruby grew up in Chicago, the son of Jewish immigrants; that he lived in a
home disrupted by domestic strife; (6) that he was troubled psychologically as a youth and not
educated beyond high school; and that descriptions of his temperament ranged from "mild
mannered" to "violent."(7) In 1963, Ruby was 52 and unmarried. He ran a Dallas nightclub
but was not particularly successful in business. His acquaintances included a number of Dallas
police officers who frequented his nightclub, as well as other types of people who comprised
his clientele.

3The committee found associations of both Ruby and Oswald that were unknown to
the Warren Commission.

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The committee examined a series of major groups or organizations
that have been alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President.
If any of these groups or organizations, as a group, had been involved in the assassination,
the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy would have been one of major
significance.

As will be detailed in succeeding sections of this report, the committee
did not find sufficient evidence that any of these groups or organizations
were involved in a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. Accordingly,
the committee concluded, on the basis of the evidence
available to it, that the Soviet government, the Cuban government,
anti-Castro Cuban groups, and the national syndicate of organized
crime were not involved in the assassination. Further, the committee
found that the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and the Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the
assassination.

Based on the evidence available to it, the committee could not preclude
the possibility that individual members of anti-Castro Cuban
groups or the national syndicate of organized crime were involved
in the assassination. There was insufficient evidence, however, to support
a finding that any individual members were involved. The ramifications
of a conspiracy involving such individuals would be significant,
although of perhaps less import than would be the case if a
group itself, the national syndicate, for example had been involved.

The committee recognized that a finding that two gunmen fired simultaneously
at the President did not, by itself, establish that there
was a conspiracy to assassinate the President. It is theoretically
possible that the gunmen were acting independently, each totally unaware
of the other. It was the committee's opinion, however, that such a theoretical
possibility is extremely remote. The more logical and probable
inference to be drawn from two gunmen firing at the same person at
the same time and in the same place is that they were acting in concert,
that is, as a result of a conspiracy.

The committee found that, to be precise and loyal to the facts it
established, it, was compelled to find that President Kennedy was
probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. The committee's finding
that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a
conspiracy was premised on four factors:

(1) Since the Warren Commission's and FBI's investigation
into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their
failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given
independent weight.
(2) The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding
that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore
its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.
(3) While it cannot be inferred from the significant associations
of Oswald and Ruby that any of the major groups examined by the committee
were involved in the assassination, a more limited conspiracy could not be ruled out.
(4) There was a high probability that a second gunman, in fact, fired at the President.
At the same time, the committee candidly stated, in expressing it
finding of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, that it was "unable
to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

Page 98

The photographic and other scientific evidence available to the committee
was insufficient to permit the committee to answer these questions.
In addition, the committee's other investigative efforts did not
develop evidence from which Oswald's conspirator or conspirators
could be firmly identified. It is possible, of course, that the extent of
the conspiracy was so limited that it involved only Oswald and the second
gunman. The committee was not able to reach such a conclusion, for it would
have been based on speculation, not evidence. Aspects of the investigation did
suggest that the conspiracy may have been relatively limited, but to state with
precision exactly how small was not possible. Other aspects of the committee's investigation
did suggest, however, that while the conspiracy may not have involved a
major group, it may not have been limited to only two people. These aspects of the committee's investigation are discussed
elsewhere.

If the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was limited to
Oswald and a second gunman, its main societal significance may be
in the realization that agencies of the U.S. Government inadequately
investigated the possibility of such a conspiracy. In terms of its implications
for government and society, an assassination as a consequence of a
conspiracy composed solely of Oswald and a small number of persons, possibly
only one, and possibly a person akin to Oswald in temperament and ideology, would not have been fundamentally
different from an assassination by Oswald alone. 4

4If the conspiracy was, in fact, limited to Oswald, the second
gunman, and perhaps one or two others, the committee believes it was possible they shared Oswald's left-wing
political disposition. A consistent pattern in Oswald's life (see section A 5) was a propensity
for actions with political overtones. It is quite likely that an assassination conspiracy limited to Oswald and
a few associates was in keeping with that pattern.
Further it is possible that associates of Oswald in the Kennedy assassination had been
involved with him in earlier activities. Two possibilities: the attempt on the life of Gen.
Edwin A. Walker in April 1963 and the distribution of Fair Play for Cuba Committee literature in August 1963.
With respect to the Walker incident, there was substantial evidence that Oswald did the shooting
(section A 5), although at the time of the shooting it was not sufficient to implicate Oswald or
anyone else. It was not until after the Kennedy assassination that Oswald became a suspect in the Walker attack, based on the testimony
of his widow Marina. Marina's characterization of Oswald is more consistent with his having
shot at Walker alone than his having assistance, although at the time of the shooting there was
testimony that tended to indicate more than one person was involved. Further, it is not
necessary to believe all of what Marina said about the incident or to believe that Oswald
told her all there was to know, since either of them might have been concealing the involvement of
others.
According to a general offense report of the Dallas police, Walker reported at approximately 9:10 p.m.
on April 10, 1963, that a bullet had been fired through a first floor window of his home at 4011
Turtle Creek Boulevard, Dallas. Detectives subsequently found that a bullet had first shattered a window, then gone
through a wall and had landed on a stack of papers in an adjoining room. In their report the detectives described
the bullet as steel-jacketed, of unknown caliber.
Police located a 14-year-old boy in Walker's neighborhood who said that after hearing the shot,
he climbed a fence and looked into an alley to the rear of Walker's home. The boy said he
then saw some men speeding down the alley in a light green or light blue Ford, either a 1959 or 1960
model. He said he also saw another car, a 1958 Chevrolet, black with white down the side, in a church parking lot adjacent to Walker's house.
The car door was open, and a man was bending over the back seat, as though he was placing something
on the floor of the car.
On the night of the incident, police interviewed Robert Surrey, an aide to Walker.
Surrey said that on Saturday, April 6, at about 9 p.m., he had seen two men sitting in a
dark purple or brown 1963 Ford at the rear of Walker's house. Surrey also said the two men got out of the car and
walked around the house. Surrey said he was suspicious and followed the car, noting that it carried no
license plate.
If it could be shown that Oswald had associates in the attempt on General Walker, they
would be likely candidates as the grassy knoll gunmen. The committee recognized, however,
that this is speculation, since the existence, much less identity, of an Oswald associate in the Walker shooting
was hardly established. Further, the committee failed in its effort to develop productive leads in the
Walker shooting.
With respect to the Cuba literature incident, Oswald was photographed with two associates
distributing pro-Castro pamphlets in August 1963. As a result of a fight with anti-Castro Cubans, Oswald was arrested,
but his associates were not. Of the two associates, only one was identified in the Warren
Commission investigation (Warren Report, p. 292). Although the second associate was clearly
portrayed in photographs (see Pizzo Exhibits 453-A and 453-B. Warren Commission Report, Vol. XXI, p. 139),
the Commission was unable to identify him, as was the case with the committee.

Page 99

1. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE
BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION
OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

With the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President Kennedy,
speculation arose over the significance of Oswald's
defection to the Soviet Union from October 1959 to June 1962, and his
activities while living in that country. Specifically, these troubling
questions were asked:

Had Oswald been enlisted by the KGB, the Soviet secret police?.
Could the assassination have been the result of a KGB plot?(1)

(a) United States-Soviet relations

To put these concerns in context, it is necessary to look at Soviet-American
relations in the 1960's. United States-Soviet relations had,
in fact, been turbulent during the Kennedy Presidency. There had
been major confrontations: over Berlin, where the wall had come to
symbolize the barrier between the two superpowers; and over Cuba,
where the emplacement of Soviet missiles had nearly started World
War III. (2)

A nuclear test-ban treaty in August 1963 seemed to signal detente,
but in November, tension was building again, as the Soviets harassed,
American troop movements to and from West Berlin.(3) And Cuba
was as much an issue as ever. In Miami, on November 18, President
Kennedy vowed the United States would not countenance the establishment
of another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere.(4)

(b) The Warren Commission investigation

The Warren Commission considered the possibility of Soviet complicity in
the assassination, but it concluded there was no evidence of
it.(5) In its report, the Commission noted that the same
conclusion had been reached by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara, among others.(6) Rusk testified before
the Commission on June 10, 1964:

I have seen no evidence that would indicate to me that
the Soviet Union considered that it had any interest in the
removal of President Kennedy ...I can't see how it could
be to the interest of the Soviet Union to make any such
effort.

(c) The committee's investigation

The committee, in analyzing Oswald's relationship to Russian intelligence, considered:

Statements of both Oswald and his wife, Marina, about their
life in the Soviet Union;(7)
Documents provided by the Soviet Government to the Warren
Commission concerning Oswald's residence in the Soviet
Union; (8)
Statements by Soviet experts in the employ, current or past,
of the Central Intelligence Agency;(9)
Files on other defectors to the Soviet Union; (10) and
Statements by defectors from the Soviet Union to the United States. (11)

Page 100

(1) Oswald in the U.S.S.R.---The committee reviewed the documents
Oswald wrote about his life in the Soviet Union, including his
diary and letters to his mother, Marguerite, and brother, Robert.
They paralleled, to a great extent, the information in documents provided
to the Warren Commission by the Soviet Government after the
assassination. (13) These documents were provided to the Commission
in response to its request that the Soviet Government give the Commission
any "available information concerning the activities of Lee
Harvey Oswald during his residence from 1959 to 1962 in the Soviet
Union, in particular, copies of any official records concerning
him."(14)

Two sets of documents, totaling approximately 140 pages, were
turned over to the Commission by the Soviets in November 1963 and
in May 1964.(15) They were routine, official papers. None of them
appeared to have come from KGB files, and there were no records of
interviews of Oswald by the KGB, nor were there any surveillance
reports. Unfortunately, the authenticity of the documents could not
be established. The signatures of Soviet officials, for example, were
illegible.(16)

Nevertheless, the Soviet documents and Oswald's own statements
give this account of Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union:

He lived there from October 1959 to June 1962.
He attempted suicide on learning he would not be permitted to remain in the U.S.S.R.
He worked in a radio plant in Minsk.
He met and married Marina.
He was originally issued a residence visa for stateless persons and later issued a residence visa for foreigners.
He obtained exit visas for himself and his family before departing the Soviet Union.

Neither the documents nor Oswald's own statements indicate that he was debriefed or put under surveillance by the KGB.

The committee interviewed U.S. officials who specialize in Soviet
intelligence, asking them what treatment they would have expected
Oswald to have received during his defection. (17) For the most part,
they suspected that Oswald would have routinely been debriefed by
the KGB and that many persons who came in contact with Oswald in
the U.S.S.R. would have been connected with the KGB.(18)

(2) Treatment of defectors by the Soviet Government.---The
committee examined the CIA and FBI files on others who had defected
in the same period as Oswald and who had eventually returned to the
United States.(19) The purpose was to determine the frequency of
KGB contact and whether the treatment of Oswald appeared to be
significantly different from the norm. The defectors studied by the
committee were selected because their backgrounds and other characteristics
were similar to Oswald's, on the theory that their treatment by
the KGB could be expected to parallel that of Oswald, if he was not a
special case, a recruited assassin, for example.

The examination of the defector files was inconclusive, principally
because the case of nearly every defector was unique. (20) In addition,
the files available on the experiences of the defectors were often not
adequate to extract meaningful data for the purpose of this investiga-

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tion, since, they were compiled for other reasons. (21) As to contacts
with the KGB, the experiences of American defectors appeared to have
varied greatly. Some reported daily contact with Soviet intelligence
agents, while others did not mention ever having been contacted or debriefed.(22)

(3) Yuri Nosenko.--Of all the areas investigated by the committee
with respect to possible Soviet involvement in the assassination, none
seemed as potentially rewarding as an examination of statements made
by KGB officers who had defected to the United States. In determining
how the KGB treats American defectors, an ex-KGB officer would
certainly be of great interest. In this regard, the committee had access
to three such men, one of whom, Yuri Nosenko, claimed to possess far
more than general information about American defectors.

In January 1964,5 Nosenko, identifying himself as a KGB officer,
sought asylum in the United States. (23) He claimed to have worked
in the KGB Second Chief Directorate whose functions, in many respects, are
similar to those of the FBI.(24) According to Nosenko,
while working in 1959 in a KGB department dealing with American
tourists, he learned of a young American who sought to defect to the
Soviet Union. The American was Lee Harvey Oswald. (25)

Nosenko stated he had worked extensively on the Oswald case, and
he provided the FBI and CIA with data pertaining to Oswald's request
to defect and remain in the Soviet Union, the initial rejection of
that request by the KGB, Oswald's suicide attempt and a subsequent
decision to permit him to remain in Russia. (26) Although the KGB,
according to Nosenko, was well aware of Oswald, it made no attempt
to debrief or interview him.(27) Never was any consideration given
by the KGB to enlist Oswald into the Soviet intelligence service. (28)

The committee was most interested in Nosenko's claim that in 1963,
after Oswald was arrested in the assassination, he had an opportunity
to see the KGB file on the suspected assassin. As a result, Nosenko said,
he was able to state categorically that Oswald was not a Soviet agent
and that no officer of the KGB had ever interviewed or debriefed him. (29)

Nosenko's testimony, however, did not settle the question of Soviet
complicity in the assassination. From the time of his defection, some
U.S. intelligence officers suspected Nosenko was on a disinformation
mission to mislead the American Government. Since other CIA
officials believed Nosenko was a bona fide defector, a serious disagreement
at the top level of the Agency resulted. (30)

The Warren Commission found itself in the middle of the Nosenko
controversy--and in a quandary of its own, since the issue of
Nosenko's reliability bore significantly on the assassination investigation.(31)
If he was telling the truth, the Commission could possibly
write off Soviet involvement in a conspiracy. 6 If, on the other hand,
Nosenko was lying, the Commission would be faced with a dilemma. While a deceitful Nosenko would not necessarily point to Soviet
complicity, it would leave the issue in limbo. The Warren Commission

5Nosenko had first contacted the U.S.Government in June 1962.

6The Commission as well as the committee recognized that
Nosenko could have been candid and that the connection between Oswald and the KGB could have
been compartmentalized, that is, known only to a few people, not including Nosenko.

Page 102

chose not to call Nosenko as a witness or to mention him in its report,
apparently because it could not resolve the issue of his reliability. (32)

The committee, on the other hand, reviewed all available statements
and files pertaining to Nosenko. (33) It questioned Nosenko in detail
about Oswald, finding significant inconsistencies in statements he had
given the FBI, CIA and the committee. (34) For example, Nosenko
told the committee that the KGB had Oswald under extensive surveillance,
including mail interception, wiretap and physical observation.
Yet, in 1964, he told the CIA and FBI there had been no such
surveillance of Oswald.(35) Similarly, in 1964, Nosenko indicated
there had been no psychiatric examination of Oswald subsequent to his
suicide attempt, while in 1978 he detailed for the committee the reports
he had read about psychiatric examinations of Oswald.(36)

The committee also found that the CIA had literally put Nosenko
in solitary confinement from 1964 to 1968. (37) Strangely, while he was
interrogated during this period, he was questioned very little about
Oswald. (38) The Agency did not seem to realize Nosenko's importance
to an investigation of the assassination. While Richard Helms, then the
CIA's Deputy Director for Plans, did tell Chief Justice Warren about
Nosenko, the Agency's interest in him seemed to be largely limited to
its own intelligence-gathering problem: did the KGB send Nosenko
to the United States to deceive the CIA on many matters, only one of
them perhaps related to the assassination? (39)

In the end, the committee, too, was unable to resolve the Nosenko
matter. The fashion in which Nosenko was treated by the Agency--his
interrogation and confinement--virtually ruined him as a valid source
of information on the assassination. Nevertheless, the committee was
certain Nosenko lied about Oswald--whether it was to the FBI and
CIA in 1964, or to the committee in 1978, or perhaps to both.(40)

The reasons he would lie about Oswald range from the possibility
that he merely wanted to exaggerate his own importance to the disinformation
hypothesis with its sinister implications.

Lacking sufficient evidence to distinguish among alternatives, 7 the
committee decided to limit its conclusion to a characterization of
Nosenko as an unreliable source of information about the assassination, or, more specifically, as to whether Oswald was ever
contacted, or placed under surveillance, by the KGB.

(4) Opinions of other defectors.--In addition to interviewing
Nosenko, the committee questioned two other former KGB officers who
had defected to the United States. While neither could base an opinion
on any personal experience with that part of the KGB in which
Nosenko said he had served, both said that Oswald would have been
of interest to the Soviet intelligence agency, that he would have been
debriefed and that he may have been kept under surveillance.(41)

(5) Marina Oswald.--The committee not only considered a possible
connection between Oswald and the KGB, it also looked into charges
that his widow, Marina, was an agent of the KGB, or that she at least
influenced her husband's actions in the assassination on orders from

7Beyond those reasons for falsification that can be attributed
to Nosenko himself, there has been speculation that the Soviet Government, while not involved
in the assassination, sent Nosenko on a mission to allay American fears. Hence, while his story about
no connection between Oswald and the KGB might be false, his claim of no Soviet involvement in the
assassination would be truthful.

Page 103

Soviet officials. The committee examined Government files on Marina,
it questioned experts on Soviet affairs and former KGB officers, and
it took testimony from Marina herself.(42) The committee could find
no evidence to substantiate the allegations about Marina Oswald Porter.

Mrs. Porter testified before the committee that Oswald had never
been contacted directly by the KGB, though she assumed that he and
she alike had been under KGB surveillance when they lived in the Soviet Union.

(6) Response of the Soviet Government.--Finally, the committee
attempted to obtain from the Soviet Government any information on
Oswald that it had not provided to the Warren Commission. In response
to a committee request relayed by the State Department, the
Soviet Government informed the committee that all the information it
had on Oswald had been forwarded to the Warren Commission. (43)

The committee concluded, however, that it is highly probable that
the Soviet Government possessed information on Oswald that it has
not provided to the U.S. Government. It would be the extensive information
that most likely was gathered by a KGB surveillance of
Oswald and Marina while they were living in Russia. It is also quite
likely that the Soviet Government withheld files on a KGB interview
with Oswald. 8

(d) Summary of the evidence

Its suspicions notwithstanding, the committee was led to believe, on
the basis of the available evidence, that the Soviet Government was not
involved in the assassination. In the last, analysis, the Committee agreed
with the testimony of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk. To wit,
there is no evidence that the Soviet Government had any interest in
removing President Kennedy, nor is there any evidence that it planned
to take advantage of the President's death before it happened or attempted
to capitalize on it after it occurred. In fact, the reaction of the
Soviet Government as well as the Soviet people seemed to be one of
genuine shock and sincere grief. The committee believed, therefore, on
the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government
was not involved in the assassination.

2. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE BASIS
OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT WAS NOT INVOLVED IN
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

When the leader of a great nation is assassinated, those initially
suspected always include his adversaries. When President John F.
Kennedy was struck down by rifle fire in Dallas in November 1963,
many people suspected Cuba and its leader, Fidel Castro Ruz, of involvement
in the assassination, particularly after it was learned that
Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, had sought to travel to Cuba
in September 1963.(1) To evaluate those suspicions properly, it is

8The committee concluded that it should not necessarily be inferred from the
failure of the Soviet Government to cooperate with the committee that it was involved in the
assassination. Just as agencies of the U.S. intelligence community are reluctant to share their
confidential files, a similar response might be expected to come from the KGB. The Soviet
Government, it could be argued, would have little to gain and much to lose by turning over its
files. While the committee recognized the logic of this argument, it regretted that the Soviet
Government, in the interest of historical truth, did not cooperate.

Page 104

necessary to look at Cuban-American relations in the years immediately
before and after President Kennedy took office.

(a) United States-Cuban relations

The triumphant arrival of Fidel Castro in Havana on, January 1,
1959, marking a victorious climax of file revolution he had led, was initially
heralded in the United States as well as in Cuba. Castro was
hailed as a champion of the people, a man who would lead a free and
democratic Cuba. While some suspected that Castro had Communist
leanings, the majority of the American public supported him. (2) The
appointment of Philip Bonsal as U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, replacing
Earl E.T. Smith, who was personally wary of Castro, was a clear
signal that the United States was interested in amicable relations with
the revolutionary government. On appointing Bonsal, President Eisenhower
expressed the hope for an "ever closer relationship between Cuba
and the United States."(3)

By the end of 1959, however, United States-Cuban relations had deteriorated
to the point that there was open hostility between the two
countries. (4) President Kennedy was to inherit the problem in 1961,
and by the time of his assassination on November 22, 1963, the antagonism
had developed into a serious international crisis.

To begin with, the United States deplored the mass executions of
officials of the Batista government that Castro had deposed. (5) In reply,
Castro charged that the United States had never voiced objections
to killing and torture by Batista. He said the trials and sentences
would continue. (6) In his revolutionary economic policies. Castro took
steps that severely challenged the traditional role of the United States.
In March 1959, the Cuban Government took over the United States-owned
Cuban Telephone Co. in May. U.S. companies were among
those expropriated in the Cuban Government's first large-scale nationalization
action, also in May, the agrarian reform law resulted
in the expropriation of large landholdings, many of them U.S.-owned. (7)

Vice President Nixon met with Castro in Washington in April.
Castro left the meeting convinced that Nixon was hostile. For his part,
Nixon recommended to President Eisenhower that the United States
take measures to quash the Cuban revolution. (8)

Disillusionment with Castro also spread to significant elements of
the Cuban populace. In June, the chief of the Cuban Air Force, Maj.
Pedro Diaz Lanz, fled to the United States, charging there was Communist
influence in the armed forces and the Government of Cuba. (9)
A few weeks later, Manuel Urrutria Lleo, the President of Cuba, stated
on Cuban national television that communist was not concerned with
the welfare of the people and that it constituted a throat to the revolution.
In the succeeding flurry of events, President Urrutria resigned
after Castro accused him of "actions bordering on treason."(10)

By the summer of 1960, Castro had seized more than $700 million in
U.S. property; the Eisenhower administration had canceled the
Cuban sugar quota; Castro was cementing his relations with the Soviet
Union, having sent his brother Raul on a visit to Moscow, Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, a top Castro lieutenant, had proclaimed publicly that
the revolution was on a course set by Marx; and CIA Director Allen
Dulles had said in a speech that communist had pervaded Castro's

Page 105

revolution. (11) On March 17, 1960, President Eisenhower quietly authorized
the CIA to organize, train, and equip Cuban refugees as a
guerrilla force to overthrow Castro. (12)

On January 2, 1961, the United States broke diplomatic relations
with Cuba.(13) A period of increased tension followed. It was
marked by an exchange of bitter statements by the new U.S. President,
John F. Kennedy, and the Cuban Premier. Castro charged CIA complicity
in counterrevolutionary activity against his Government and
publicly predicted an imminent U.S. invasion. (14) In his state of the
Union address on January 30, Kennedy said:

In Latin America, Communist agents seeking to exploit
that region's peaceful revolution of hope have established a
base on Cuba, only 90 miles from our shores. Our objection
with Cuba is not over the people's drive for a better life. Our
objection is to their domination by foreign and domestic
tyrannies....

President Kennedy said further that "...Communist domination in
this hemisphere can never be negotiated." (15)

(1) Bay of Pigs.--After much deliberation, President Kennedy
gave the go-ahead for a landing of anti-Castro Cubans, with U.S. support,
at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Las Villas Province. It was launched on
April 17, 1961, but it was thwarted by Cuban troops, said to have been commanded by Castro himself. (16)

On President Kennedy's orders, no U.S. military personnel actually
fought on Cuban soil, but U.S. sponsorship of the landing was readily
apparent. President Kennedy publicly acknowledged "sole responsibility"
for the U.S. role in the abortive invasion. (17)

After the Bay of Pigs debacle, the tension continued to escalate. As
early as April 20, President Kennedy reaffirmed, in a speech to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors, that the United States was
resolved not to abandon Cuba to communism.(18) On May 1, Secretary
of State Dean Rusk told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee
on Latin American Affairs that if the Castro regime engaged
in acts of aggression, the United States would "defend itself." (19) On
May 17, the House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring
Cuba to be "a clear and present danger" to the Western Hemisphere.
(20) Throughout 1961 and 1962, U.S. policy was to subject Cuba to economic
isolation and to support stepped-up raids by anti-Castro guerrillas,
many of which were planned with the assassination of Castro and
other Cuban officials as a probable consequence, if not a specific objective. (21)
The Cuban Government, in turn, assumed often correctly-- that the raids were
instigated and directed by the U.S. Government.(22) In preparation for
another large-scale attack, the Castro regime sought and received increased military
support from the Soviet Union.(23)

(2) Cuban missile crisis.--All-out war between the United States
and the U.S.S.R. was narrowly averted in the Cuban missile crisis in
the fall of 1962. On October 22, President Kennedy announced that
U.S. photographic reconnaissance flights had discovered that work was
underway in Cuba on offensive missile sites with a nuclear strike capability. (24)
On October 23, the President issued a proclamation impos-

Page 106

ing a quarantine on the delivery of offensive weapons to Cuba, to be
enforced by a U.S. naval blockade. (25)

Negotiations conducted between the United States and the Soviet
Union resulted in an end to the immediate crisis on November 20,
1962.(26) To most observers, President Kennedy had won the confrontation
with Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.9 War
had been averted, however narrowly. Russian IL-28 bombers were to
be withdrawn from Cuba, and progress was being made on the removal
of offensive missiles and other weapons.(27) The Soviets and the
Cubans gained a "no invasion" pledge that was conditional upon a
United Nations inspection to verify that Soviet offensive weapons had
been removed from Cuba. (28) Because Castro never allowed the inspection,
the United States never officially made the reciprocal pledge not
to invade Cuba.(29)

There is evidence that by the fall of 1963, informal overtures for
better United States-Cuban relations had been authorized by President
Kennedy. (30) Talks between United States and Cuban officials at the
United Nations were under consideration. In addition, the United
States had attempted in the period after the missile crisis to stem the
anti-Castro raids by, at least publicly, refusing to sanction them.(31)
But covert action by the United States had neither ceased nor escaped
Castro's notice, and the rhetoric indicated that the crisis could explode
anew at any time. (32)

On September 7, 1963, in an interview with Associated Press reporter Daniel
Harker, Castro warned against the United States "aiding terrorist plans
to eliminate Cuban leaders," and added that U.S.
leaders would be in danger if they promoted any attempt to eliminate
the leaders of Cuba. (33) On November 18, in Miami, Fla., just 4 days
before his assassination, President Kennedy stated:

...what now divides Cuba from my Country ...is
the fact that a small band of conspirators has stripped the
Cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence
and sovereignty of the Cuban nation to forces beyond this
hemisphere. They have made Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism,
an instrument of the policy of others. a weapon in
an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other
American Republics. This, and this alone, divides us. (34)

(b) Earlier investigations of Cuban complicity

When President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963,
the basic outlines of the recent history of United States-Cuban relations,
if not the specific details, were known to every American who
even occasionally read a newspaper. Thus, when speculation arose as
to the possibility of conspiracy, Fidel Castro and his Communist government
were natural suspects. While rationality may have precluded
any involvement of the Cuban Government, the recognition that Castro
had been among the late President's most prominent enemies compelled
such speculation.

9When it became known to anti-Castro Cuban exiles that Kennedy
had agreed to stop the raids on Cuba, the exiles considered the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal anything
but a victory. To them, it was another betrayal (see section C 3 for details).

Page 107

(1) The Warren Commission investigation.--Investigative efforts
into the background of Lee Harvey Oswald led to an early awareness
of his Communist and pro-Castro sympathies, his activities in support
of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and a trip he made in September
1963 to Mexico City where he visited the Soviet Embassy and the
Cuban consulate. (35)

All of this information had been gathered prior to the beginning of
the Warren Commission's investigation, and it was sufficient to alert
the Commission to the need to investigate the possibility of a conspiracy
initiated or influenced by Castro. The report of the Warren
Commission reflects that it was indeed considered, especially with respect
to the implications of Oswald's Mexico City trip. (36) In addition,
the Warren Commission reviewed various specific allegations of
activity that suggested Cuban involvement, concluding, however, that
there had been no such conspiracy. (37) For the next few years, suspicions
of Cuban involvement in the assassination were neither widespread nor vocal.
Nevertheless, beginning with a 1967 column by Drew
Pearson and Jack Anderson, press reports that suggested Castro's involvement
in the assassination began to circulate once again. (38) Specifically,
they posed the theory that President Kennedy might have
been assassinated in retaliation for CIA plots against the life of the
Cuban leader.

(2) The U.S. Senate investigation.--Thereafter, the Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities was formed to investigate the performance of the
CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.(39) The Senate committee
detailed two general types of operations that the CIA had directed
against Castro. One, referred to as the AMLASH operation, involved
the CIA's relationship with an important Cuban figure (code-named
AMLASH) who,(40) while he was trusted by Castro, professed to
the CIA that he would be willing to organize a coup against the Cuban
leader. The CIA was in contact with AMLASH from March 1961
until June 1965. (41) A second plot documented by the Senate committee
was a joint effort by the CIA and organized crime in America. It was initiated
in 1960 in a conversation between the agency's Deputy
Director for Plans, Richard Bissell, and the Director of Security,
Col. Sheffield Edwards. According to the Senate committee, this
operation lasted until February 1963. (42)

The Senate committee concluded from its review of the joint operations
of the CIA and organized crime that "...Castro probably
would not have been certain that the CIA was behind the underworld
attempts." (43) Nor, in the view of the Senate committee, would
Castro have distinguished between the CIA-underworld plots and the numerous
other plots by Cuban exiles which were not affiliated in any way
with the CIA. (44) By emphasizing these two conclusions, the Senate
committee apparently intended to suggest that the efforts by the CIA
and organized crime to eliminate Castro would not have resulted
any retaliation against officials of the United States.(45)

The Senate committee identified the AMLASH operation as being
"clearly different" from the CIA-underworld plots.(46) It was
still in progress at the time of the assassination, and it could
clearly be traced to the CIA, since AMLASH's proposed coup had been endorsed

Page 108

by the CIA, with the realization that the assassination of Castro might
be a consequence.(47) Nevertheless, the Senate committee found
"...no evidence that Fidel Castro or others in the Cuban Government
plotted President Kennedy's assassination in retaliation for U.S.
operations against Cuba."(48) The Senate committee left the door
open, however, starting, "...the investigation should continue in certain
areas, and for that reason (the committee) does not reach any final conclusions." (49)

(3) The CIA's response to the Senate.--In response to publication
of the report of the Senate committee, a special internal CIA task
force was assigned in 1977 to investigate and evaluate the critical
questions that had been raised. The task force first considered the retaliation
thesis. It advanced the position that the Senate committee
had essentially ignored the history of adversarial relations between the
United States and Cuba which, if provocation were the issue, provided
adequate grounds to support a theory of possible retaliation without
the necessity of reaching for specific Agency programs such as the
Mafia and AMLASH plots. (50) In essence, the task force report suggests,
those plots were only one aspect of a large picture and in themselves
were not sufficient to have provoked retaliation. (51).

The 1977 CIA task force then specifically responded to the Senate
committee with respect to the AMLASH operation:

Whatever the relationship with AMLASH, following the
death of President Kennedy, there is every indication that
during President Kennedy's life AMLASH had no basis for
believing that he had CIA support for much of anything.
Were he a provocateur reporting to Castro, or if he was
merely careless and leaked what he knew, he had no factual
basis for leaking or reporting any actual CIA plot directed
against Castro. (52)

With respect to the CIA-sponsored organized crime operations,
the CIA task force noted:

It is possible that the CIA simply found itself involved in
providing additional resources for independent operations
that the syndicate already had underway ...[I]n a sense
CIA may have been piggy-backing on the syndicate and in
addition to its material contributions was also providing an
aura of official sanction. (53)

The task force argued, therefore, that the plots should have been seen
as Mafia, not CIA, endeavors.

A conclusion of the Senate committee had been that further investigation
was warranted, based in part on its finding that the CIA had
responded inadequately to the Warren Commission's request for all
possible relevant information. The CIA had not told the Commission
of the plots. (54) In response, the 1977 CIA task force observed:

While one can understand today why the Warren Commission
limited its inquiry to normal avenues of investigation, it
would have served to reinforce the credibility of its effort had
it taken a broader view of the matter. CIA, too, could have
considered in specific terms what most saw in general terms--
the possibility of Soviet or Cuban involvement in the JFK

Page 109

assassination because of the tensions of the time ...The
Agency should have taken broader initiatives, then, as well.
That CIA employees at the time felt--as they obviously did--
that the activities about which they knew had no relevance to
the Warren Commission inquiry does not take the place of a
record of conscious review. (55)

(c) The committee's analysis of the CIA task force report

The committee believed its mandate compelled it to take a new look
at the question of Cuban complicity in the assassination.

The Warren Commission had expressed its view, as follows:

...the investigation of the Commission has thus produced
no evidence that Oswald's trip to Mexico was in any
way connected with the assassination of President Kennedy,
nor has it uncovered evidence that the Cuban Government had
any involvement in the assassination. (56)

There are two ways that this statement may be read:

The Warren Commission's investigation was such that had a
conspiracy existed, it would have been discovered, and since it was
not, there was no conspiracy.
The Warren Commission's investigation, limited as it was,
simply did not find a conspiracy.

Although the Commission inferred that the first interpretation was
the proper one, the committee investigated the possibility that the
second was closer to the truth.

Similarly, the committee investigated to see if there was a factual
basis for a finding made by the Senate Select Committee that
the CIA plots to assassinate Castro could have given rise to crucial
leads that could have been pursued in 1963 and 1964, or, at a minimum,
would have provided critical additional impetus to the Commission's
investigation. (57)

As previously noted, although the 1977 CIA Task Force Report at
least nominally recognized that the Agency, in 1962-64, "... could
have considered in specific terms what most saw then in general terms--
the possibility of Soviet or Cuban involvement in the assassination because
of the tensions of the time," and that the Agency "should have
taken broader initiatives then," the remainder of the Task Force Report
failed to specify what those broader initiatives should have been or
what they might have produced. It did, however, enumerate four areas
for review of its 1963-64 performance:

Oswald's travel to and from the U.S.S.R.;
Oswald's Mexico visit in September-October 1963;
The CIA's general extraterritorial intelligence collection requirements; and
Miscellaneous leads that the Senate committee alleged the Agency had failed to pursue. (58)

The 1977 Task Force Report reviewed the question of Agency operations
directed at Cuba, including, in particular, the Mafia and
AMLASH plots.(59) In each area, the report concluded that the
Agency's 1963-64 investigation was adequate and could not be faulted,
even with the benefit of hindsight.(60) The task force uncritically
accepted the Senate committee's conclusions where they were favor-

Page 110

able to the Agency, 10 and it critically rejected the Senate committee's
conclusions (as in the case of AMLASH) wherever some possible
investigative oversight was suggested. (62)

The 1977 Task Force Report, in sum, did little more than suggest
that any theoretically "broader initiatives" the Agency could have
taken in 1963-64 would have uncovered nothing. They would only
have served to head off outside criticism. That conclusion is illustrated
in the following passage of the report:

...[our] findings are essentially negative. However, it
must be recognized that CIA cannot be as confident of a cold
trail in 1977 as it could have been in 1964; this apparent fact
will be noted by the critics of the Agency, and by those who
have found a career in the questions already asked and yet to
be asked about the assassination of President Kennedy. (63)

The committee, of course, realized that the CIA's 1977 review might
be correct, that broader initiatives might only have been window dressing
and would have produced nothing of substance. But the 1977 report failed to
document that fact, if it were a fact. For example, it
provided no detailed resume of the backgrounds of those CIA case
officers, Cubans and Mafia figures who plotted together to kill Castro.

There is nothing in the report on the activities of the anti-Castro
plotters during the last half of 1963. If the Agency had been truly
interested in determining the possible investigative significance to the
Kennedy assassination of such CIA-Cuban-Mafia associations, the committee
assumed it would have directed its immediate attention to such
activities in that period.

The task force report also noted that even without its taking broader
initiatives, the CIA still sent general directives to overseas stations
and cited, as an example, a cable which read:

Tragic death of President Kennedy requires all of us to
look sharp for any unusual intelligence development. Although we
have no reason to expect anything of a particular
military nature, all hands should be on the quick alert for the
next few days while the new President takes over the
reins.(64)

The report, reasoned that the CIA's tasking of its stations was
"necessarily general," since little was known at the time about which it
could be specific. (65)

The CIA task force further noted that 4 days after this general cable
was sent, a followup request for any available information was sent
to 10 specific stations. The task force argued, in any event, that such
general requirements for intelligence-gathering would have been adequate,
since "relevant information on the subject" would have been
reported anyway. (66)

Conspicuously absent from such self-exculpatory analysis was any
detailed discussion of what specific efforts the Agency's stations actually
made to secure "relevant information" about the assassination.

10For example, with respect to the Agency's investigation of
Oswald's trip to Russia, the report summarily concluded, "Book V of the SSC Final Report, in not
criticizing the Agency's performance in this aspect of the investigation, seems to have accepted
it as adequate, and it will not be detailed here." (61)

Page 111

For example, it became generally known that in 1963 the CIA had a
station in Florida through which it monitored the activities of most of
the anti-Castro Cuban groups operating in the United States. While
the Florida station was mentioned, the task force report failed to make
a comprehensive analysis of what requirements were placed on the station
and the station's response. It might have been expected that the
station would have been required to contact and debrief all of its
Cuban sources. In addition, the station should have been asked to use
all of its possible sources to determine if any operatives in the anti-Castro
Cuban community had information about possible Cuban Government involvement
or about any association between Oswald and possible Cuban Government agents.
Further, the station, or possibly other units of the CIA, should have
been tasked to attempt to reconstruct the details of the travels and activities of known
pro-Castro Cuban operatives in the United States for 60 or 90 days prior to
the assassination. (Such undertakings might have been made without
specific cables or memoranda requiring them. The Task Force Report
implied such efforts were taken by the stations "on their own initiative." (67)
But the Task Force Report failed to document or even
discuss the details of such efforts or the responses of the stations to
CIA headquarters.)

The committee found that the CIA's 1977 Task Force Report was
little more than an attempted rebuttal of the Senate Select Committee's criticisms, and
not a responsible effort to evaluate objectively its
own 1963-64 investigation or its anti-Castro activities during the
early 1960's or to assess their significance vis-a-vis the assassination.

The committee made an effort to evaluate these questions through
its own independent investigation. In investigating the implications
of the CIA plots and the Warren Commission's ignorance of them,
the committee conducted interviews, depositions and hearings for the
purpose of taking testimony from pertinent individuals, conducted
interviews in Mexico and Cuba, and reviewed extensive files at the
CIA and FBI. (68)

(1) AMLASH.---Turning first to the AMLASH operation, the
committee received conflicting testimony as to whether, prior to the
Kennedy assassination, it was considered to be an assassination plot.
Former CIA Director Richard M. Helms, in his testimony before the
committee, stated that the AMLASH operation was not designed to
be an assassination plot. (69) And, as already indicated, the 1977 Task
Force Report concluded that AMLASH had "no factual basis for
leaking or reporting any actual Central Intelligence Agency plot directed
against Castro" during President Kennedy's life.(70)

The committee, however, noted that such characterizations were
probably both self-serving and irrelevant. The committee found that
the evidence confirmed the Senate committee's report that AMLASH
himself envisioned assassination as an essential first step in any overthrow
of Castro. (71) It also noted that it was Castro's point of view,
not the Agency's, that would have counted.

The CIA's files reflect that as early as August 1962, AMLASH spoke
to his CIA case officer about being interested in the "...sabotage of
an oil refinery and the execution of a top ranking Castro subordinate,
of the Soviet Ambassador and of Castro himself."(72) The case
officer,

Page 112

in his report, while stating he made no commitments to AMLASH,
acknowledged that he did tell AMLASH"...schemes like he envisioned
certainly had their place, but that a lot of coordination, planning,
information-collection, et cetera, were necessary prerequisites to
insure the value and success of such plans."(73) Further, cables
between the case officer and CIA headquarters reflected that the Agency
decided not to give AMLASH a "physical elimination mission as [a]
requirement," but that it was something "he could or might try to
carry out on his own initiative."(74) Thus, the CIA's relationship
with AMLASH at least left him free to employ assassination in the
coup he was contemplating. That relationship could also have
been viewed by Castro as one involving the CIA in his planned
assassination.

Ultimately, the CIA also provided AMLASH with the means of
assassination and assurances that the U.S. Government would back
him in the event his coup was successful.(75) CIA files reflect that
AMLASH returned to Cuba shortly after the August 1962 meetings. (76)
He next left Cuba and met with a CIA officer in September 1963.
At that time, the CIA learned that AMLASH had not abandoned
his intentions and that he now wanted to know what the U.S. "plan
of action" was. (77) On October 11, the case officer cabled
headquarters that AMLASH was determined to make the attempt on Castro with
or without U.S. support.(78) On October 21, he reported that
AMLASH wanted assurance that the United States would support
him if his effort was successful.(79) On October 29, Desmond FitzGerald,
chief of the Special Affairs Staff, met with AMLASH, representing himself as a
spokesman for Attorney General Robert Kennedy. FitzGerald gave AMLASH the
assurance he had asked for, (80) although the CIA has argued that the support did not
specifically include assassination.

At the end of the meeting, according to the case officer's memorandum,
AMLASH asked for "technical support" which, according to FitzGerald's
memory, was described by AMLASH as being a high-powered rifle, or other weapon,
to kill Castro. (81) Although the CIA files reflect that AMLASH did
not receive the assurances of pre-assassination "technical support"
he had asked for on October 29, the
matter was further discussed, at least within the Agency, and on
November 20 AMLASH was told that the meeting he "had requested"
had been granted. (82) The technical support, as the Senate committee
reported, was actually offered to AMLASH on November 22,
1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. (83)

Whether CIA officials chose to characterize their activity as an
assassination plot, it is reasonable to infer that had Castro learned
about the meetings between AMLASH and the CIA, he could also have
learned of AMLASH's intentions, including the fact that his assassination
would be a natural and probable consequence of the plot. In
a deposition to the committee, Joseph Langosch, in 1963 the Chief of
Counterintelligence for the CIA's Special Affairs Staff,(84)
recalled that, as of 1962, it was highly possible that Cuban intelligence
was aware of AMLASH and his association with the CIA.(85) (SAS
was responsible for CIA operations against the Government of Cuba and as such
was in charge of the AMLASH operation. (86))

Page 113

The committee was unable to determine if that possibility was a
reality. The Cuban Government informed the committee that it had
come to believe that AMLASH was in fact Rolando Cubela (based
upon its construction of a profile from biographic information on
AMLASH made public by the Senate committee).(87) It stated it
did not know of Cubela's intentions until 1966. (88)
The committee was unable to confirm or deny the validity of the
Cuban Government's belief that AMLASH was Cubela. Nevertheless,
the committee considered the statement that, if Cubela were
AMLASH, the Cuban Government did not know of his intentions
until 1966. On this point, the committee was unable to accept or reject
the Cuban Government's claim with confidence. The committee merely
noted that the statement was corroborated by other information known
about the dates of Cubela's arrest and trial in Cuba and the charges
against him. The Cuban Government's position must, however, be recognized
as potentially self-serving, since it must be assumed the Cuban
Government would be inclined not to reveal any knowledge it may
have had about AMLASH's assassination plans and the CIA prior
to November 22, 1963. If it had indicated it knew, it would have contributed
to the credibility of the Senate's theories about possible
Cuban involvement in the assassination as a retaliatory act. (89)

The committee, while in Cuba, spoke to Rolando Cubela, who was
serving a life sentence for acts against the Cuban Government. He
confirmed the statements of the Cuban Government to the committee(90)
that he did not give the Cuban Government any information
that would have led it to believe that the CIA was involved in a plot
on Castro's life in 1963. In considering Cubela's testimony, the committee
took into account the possible influence of his confinement.
After reviewing all the available evidence, the committee concluded
that Castro may well have known about the AMLASH plot by November 22, 1963,
and, if so, he could have either documented or assumed it was backed by
the United States and that it was directed at his life. The committee believed
that the details of the AMLASH
operation should have been provided to the Warren Commission, since
the Commission might have been able to develop leads to participants
in the Kennedy assassination. At a minimum, the existence of the plot,
if it had been brought to the Commissions attention, would have
served as a stimulus in the 1963-64 investigation.

In conclusion, the committee believed a description of the activities
of participants in the AMLASH plot should have been provided to
the Warren Commission. It based this not only on the possibility that
the plots could have increased Castro's motivation to conspire to assassinate
President Kennedy (assuming he, in fact, was privy to the
plot prior to November 22, 1963), but also because knowledge of the
AMLASH plot might have increased the interest of the CIA, FBI,
and Warren Commission in a more thorough investigation of the
question of Cuban conspiracy. In stating this view, the committee did
not reject the suggestion in the CIA's 1977 Task Force Report that
Castro already had significant motivation to assassinate President
Kennedy, even if he were not aware of the AMLASH plot. The committee noted
however, that to the extent that that thesis was true,
it did not negate the conclusion that the AMLASH plot was relevant

Page 114

and that information about it should have been supplied to the Warren
Commission. If it had been made available, it might have affected the
course of the investigation.

(2) CIA-Mafia Plots.--Turning next to the CIA-Mafia plots, the
committee found in its investigation that organized crime probably
was active in attempts to assassinate Castro, independent of any activity
it engaged in with the CIA, as the 1977 Task Force Report had
suggested. (91) The committee found that during the initial stages of
the joint operation, organized crime decided to assist the CIA for
two reasons: CIA sponsorship would mean official sanction and logistical
support for a Castro assassination; and a relationship with the
CIA in the assassination of a foreign leader could be used by organized
crime as leverage to prevent prosecution for unrelated offenses. (92)
During the latter stages of the CIA-Mafia operation, from early
1962, to early 1963, however, organized crime may no longer have been
interested in assassinating Castro. (93) The Soviet influence in Cuba
had rendered the prospect of regaining the old Havana territory less
likely, and there were fortunes to be made in the Bahamas and elsewhere.(94)
There is reason to speculate that the Mafia continued
to appear to participate in the plots just to keep the CIA interested,
in hopes of preventing prosecution of organized crime figures and
others involved in the plots. (95)

This theory is supported by the actions of Robert Maheu, an FBI
agent turned private investigator who had acted as a CIA-organized
crime go-between, and John Roselli, a Mafia principal in the plots.
(96) Maheu, for example, was the subject of an FBI wiretap investigation
in Las Vegas in the spring of 1962. He had installed a telephone
wiretap, which he claimed was done as a favor to Mafia chieftain
Sam Giancana, who was also involved in the anti-Castro plots.(97)
Maheu's explanation to the FBI was that the tap was placed as part
of a CIA effort to obtain Cuban intelligence information through
organized crime contacts. The CIA corroborated Maheu's story, and
the case was not prosecuted. (98) In addition, in 1966, Maheu used
his contacts with the CIA to avoid testifying before a Senate committee
that was conducting hearings into invasion of privacy. (99)

As for Roselli, the committee considered it significant that public
revelations about the plots corresponded with his efforts to avoid
deportation in 1966 and 1971 and to escape prosecution for illegal
gambling activities in 1967.(100) It was Roselli who managed the
release of information about the plots and who proposed the so-called
turnaround theory of the Kennedy assassination (Cuban exiles hired
by the Mafia as hit men, captured by Castro. were forced to "turn
around" and murder President Kennedy). (101) The committee found
it quite plausible that Roselli would have manipulated public perception
of the facts of the plots, then tried to get the CIA to intervene
in his legal problems as the price for his agreeing to make no further
disclosures.

The allegation that President Kennedy was killed as a result of a
Mafia-CIA plot that was turned around by Castro was passed to Drew
Pearson and Jack Anderson by Washington attorney Edward P. Mor-

Page 115

gan; its ultimate source was Roselli.(102) The committee found little
credibility in such an explanation for the President's death because, if
for no other reason, it would have been unnecessarily risky. The committee
determined from CIA files that, in 1963, the Cuban Government had agents
of its own in nearly every country of the Western
Hemisphere, including the United States, who undoubtedly would
have been more dependable for such an assignment. Even if Castro
had wanted to minimize the chance of detection by using hired non-Cuban killers,
it appeared unlikely to the committee that he would have tried to force Mafia members or their Cuban exile
confederates to engage in the assassination of an American head of state.

The committee found it more difficult to dismiss the possibility that
the Mafia, while it was not turned around by Castro, might have
voluntarily turned around with him. By late 1962 and 1963, when
the underworld leaders involved with the CIA in the plots had perhaps
lost their motivation to assassinate Castro, they had been given
sufficient reason by the organized crime program of the Department
of Justice to eliminate President Kennedy. The committee's investigation
revealed that Mafia figures are rational, pragmatic "businessmen"
who often realine their associations and form partnerships with ex-enemies
when it is expedient.(103) While Castro, by 1963, was an old enemy
of organized crime, it was more important that both Castro and the Mafia were ailing
financially, chiefly as a result of pressures applied by the Kennedy administration. (104)
Thus, they had a common motive that might have made an
alliance more attractive than a split based on mutual animosity.

By 1963 also, Cuban exiles bitterly opposed to Castro were being
frustrated by the Kennedy administration. (105) Many of them had
come to conclude that the U.S. President was an obstacle requiring
elimination even more urgently than the Cuban dictator.(106) The
Mafia had been enlisted by the CIA because of its access to anti-Castro
Cuban operatives both in and out of Cuba.(107) In its attempt to determine
if the Mafia plot associations could have led to the assassination,
the committee, therefore, recognized that Cuban antagonism toward President
Kennedy did not depend on whether the Cubans were pro- or anti-Castro.

The committee found that the CIA-Mafia-Cuban plots had all the
elements necessary for a successful assassination conspiracy--people,
motive and means, and the evidence indicated that the participants
might well have considered using the resources at their disposal to increase
their power and alleviate their problems by assassinating the
President. Nevertheless, the committee was ultimately frustrated in its
attempt to determine details of those activities that might have led
to the assassination--identification of participants, associations, timing of
events and so on. Many of the key figures of the Castro plots
had, for example, since died or, as in the case of both Giancana and
Roselli, had been murdered.

The committee was also unable to confirm in its investigation the findings
of the Senate committee and the CIA that there were reasons
to discount the dangers to President Kennedy that may have resulted
from CIA associations with the Mafia in anti-Castro activities, The

Page 116

committee did not agree with the Senate committee that Castro would
not have blamed President Kennedy for the CIA-Mafia plots against
his life. They were formulated in the United States, and the history
of United States-Cuban relations shows that when Castro erred in
his assumptions, it was in the direction of attributing more, not less,
responsibility for attempts to depose him to U.S. Government actions
than might have been merited.

In its 1977 Task Force Report, the CIA commented on this reality:

The United States provided a haven and base for Cuban
exiles, who conducted their independent operations against
the Castro government. Some of these exiles had the support
of CIA, as well as from other elements of the U.S. Government,
and still others had support from private sources. With
or without official U.S. support these exiles spoke in forceful
Latin terms about what they hoped to do. The Cuban intelligence
services had agents in the exile community in America
and it is likely that what they reported back to Havana assigned
to CIA responsibility for many of the activities under
consideration, whether CIA was involved or not. (108)

From its investigation of documents and from the testimony of officials
and others, the committee decided that the Senate committee was
probably mistaken in its conclusion that the CIA-Mafia plots were
less significant than the AMLASH plot. In the judgment of the committee,
the CIA-Mafia plots, like the AMLASH plot, should have been
aggressively explored as part of the 1963-64 investigation of the assassination
of President Kennedy. At that time, it might still have been
possible to determine precise dates of trips, meetings, telephone communications:
and financial transactions, and the participants in these
potentially pertinent transactions could have been questioned. At least
in this one respect, the committee must concur with a sentiment expressed
in the 1977 CIA Task Force Report:

Today, the knowledge of the persons involved directly in
the various Cuban operations in the period preceding President
Kennedy's death cannot be recaptured in the form that
it existed then. These persons are scattered, their memories
are blurred by time, and some are dead. (109)

The committee, moreover, was unable to accept the conclusion of the
CIA and the Senate committee that the CIA-Mafia plots were irrelevant
because they had been terminated in February 1963, several months before
the assassination. The record is clear that the relationships
created by the plots did not terminate, nor had the threat to
Castro abated by that time. There is insufficient evidence to conclude
that the inherently sinister relationships had become benign by November 22, 1963.

In June 1963, according to the interim report of the Senate committee,
Roselli had dinner with William Harvey, chief of the CIA's
Cuban Task Force.(110) CIA files show that Roselli continued to
maintain direct contact with Harvey at least until 1967, and he was
in touch, at least indirectly, with the Agency's Chief of the Operational
Support Branch. Office of Security, as late as 1971. (111) The
Task Force Report itself alluded to information that, as late as June

Page 117

1964, gangster elements in Miami were offering $150,000 for Castro's
life, an amount mentioned to the syndicate representatives by CIA
case officers at an earlier date." (112)

In the absence of documentation of the activities of Mafia plot participants
between February 1963 and November 22, 1963--which had not been obtained in earlier
investigations, and the committee was able
to do no better--the committee found it difficult to dismiss the CIA-Mafia
plots, even assuming they had been terminated in February 1963, as of no
consequence to the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The plots,
in short, should have been made known to the Warren Commission. If they
had been investigated in 1964, they might have provided insights into
what happened in Dallas and resolved questions that have persisted.

(3) Summary of the evidence--By its conclusions about the
AMLASH operation and the CIA-Mafia plots--that they were of
possible consequence to the assassination investigation and therefore
should have been revealed to the Warren Commission--the committee
did not intend to imply it had discovered a link to the assassination. To
the contrary, the committee was not able to develop evidence that President
Kennedy was murdered in retaliation for U.S. activities against
Castro. What the committee did determine, however, was that there
was no basis, in terms of relevance to the assassination, for the CIA
to decide that the AMLASH operation and the CIA-Mafia plots
were of no significance to the Warren Commission's investigation.
On the other hand, the possibility that President Kennedy was assassinated
in retaliation for anti-Castro activities of the CIA should
have been considered quite pertinent, especially in light of
specific allegations of conspiracy possibly involving supporters of the
Cuban leader.

(d) Cubana Airlines flight allegation

The committee considered specific allegations of conspiracy involving
supporters of Castro.

One such charge, referred to in book V of the Senate select committee's report,
concerns a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana on the evening of
November 23, 1963. (113) It had been alleged that the flight was delayed
5 hours, awaiting the arrival at 9:30 p.m. of a private twin-engined aircraft.(114)
The aircraft was supposed to have deposited an unidentified passenger who boarded
the Cubans flight without clearing customs and traveled to Havana
in the pilot's cabin. (115)

The Senate committee reported that the Cubana flight departed
at 10 p.m. This committee checked the times of key events that night
by reviewing extensive investigative agency documents. It found the
following facts:

The Cubana flight was on the ground in Mexico City for a total
of only about 4 hours and 10 minutes and thus could not have been
delayed five hours. (116) The Cubana flight had departed for
Havana at 8:30 p.m., about an hour before the arrival of the private aircraft reportedly
carrying a mysterious passenger, so he could not have taken the flight. (117)

Page 118

The committee found that extensive records of flight arrivals and
departures at the Mexico City airport were available and deemed it
doubtful that the alleged transfer of a passenger from a private aircraft
to the Cubana flight could have gone unnoticed, had it occurred. (118)
The committee concluded, therefore, that the transfer
did not occur.

(e) Gilberto Policarpo Lopez allegation

More troubling to the committee was another specific allegation discussed
by the Senate committee. It concerned a Cuban-American
named Gilberto Policarpo Lopez.(119) According to the account,
Lopez obtained a tourist card in Tampa, Fla., on November 20, 1963,
entered Mexico at Nuevo Laredo on November 23, and flew from
Mexico City to Havana on November 27. (12O) Further, Lopez was
alleged to have attended a meeting of the Tampa chapter of the Fair
Play for Cuba Committee on November 17, 1963, and at a December
meeting of the chapter, Lopez was reported to be in Cuba. (12l)

The committee first examined the CIA files on Policarpo
Lopez.(122) They reflect that in early December 1963, CIA headquarters
received a classified message stating that a source had requested
"urgent traces on U.S. citizen Gilberto P. Lopez." (123)
According to the source, Lopez had arrived in Mexico on November 23
enroute to Havana and had disappeared with no record of his
trip to Havana. The message added that Lopez had obtained tourist
card No. 24553 in Tampa on November 20, that he had left Mexico
for Havana November 27 on Cubana Airlines, and that his U.S. passport
number was 310162.(124)

In another classified message of the same date, it was reported
that the FBI had been advised that Lopez entered Mexico on November 27
at Nuevo Laredo. (125)

Two days later these details were added: Lopez had crossed the
border at Laredo, Tex., on November 23; registered at the Roosevelt
Hotel in Mexico City on November 25; and departed Mexico on
November 27 on a Cubana flight for Havana. (126) Another dispatch
noted that Lopez was the only passenger on Cubans flight 465 on
November 27 to Havana. (127) It said he used a U.S. passport and
Cuban courtesy visa. It noted, too: "Source states the timing and circumstances
surrounding subject's travel through Mexico and departure for Havana are suspicious."
It was this dispatch that alerted headquarters to the source's "urgent"
request for all available data on Lopez. (128)

The same day as the dispatch, headquarters sent a cable identifying
the Cuban-American as Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, born January 26, 1940.
It added that Lopez was not identical with a Gilberto Lopez who
had been active in pro-Castro groups in Los Angeles. (129)

Headquarters was also told that there existed a "good" photograph
of Lopez, showing him wearing dark .glasses. A copy of the photograph with
"27 November 1963" stamped on the back was found in his CIA file
by committee investigators in 1978. (130)

In March 1964, CIA headquarters received a classified message: a
source had reported in late February that an American citizen named

Page 119

Gilberto Lopes 11 had been involved in the Kennedy assassination;
that Lopes had entered Mexico on foot from Laredo, Tex., on November 13
carrying U.S. passport 319962, which had been issued July 13,
1960; that he had been issued Mexican travel form B24553 in Nuevo
Laredo; that Lopes had proceeded by bus to Mexico City "where he
entered the Cuban Embassy"; and that he left the Cuban Embassy
on November 27 and was the only passenger on flight 465 for
Cuba. (132)

The following day, a classified message was sent to headquarters
stating that the information "jibes fully with that provided station
by [source] in early December 1963." (133)

A file had been opened on Lopez at headquarters on December 16,
1963. (134) It contained a "Review of [material omitted] file on
U.S. Citizen" by an operations officer of the responsible component of
the agency. In the review, the file was classified as a "counterintelligence
case, (that is, involving a foreign intelligence or security service)."
The date of entry of that category in the agency's records is indicated
as January 22, 1975. (135)

The committee also reviewed an FBI investigation of Gilberto Policarpo
Lopez in Key West, Fla., contained in a report dated August
1964.(136)

In an interview, Lopez' cousin, Guillermo Serpa Rodriguez, had
said that Lopez had come to the United States soon after Castro
came to power, stayed about a year and returned to Cuba because he
was homesick. He returned to the United States in 1960 or 1961
fearing he would be drafted into the Cuban militia. (137)

The FBI also interviewed an American woman Lopez had married
in Key West. She listed companies where he had been employed, including
a construction firm in Tampa. She also said he began suffering
from epileptic attacks, was confined for a time at Jackson Memorial
Hospital in Miami in early 1963, and was treated by doctors in Coral
Gables and Key West. She said she believed the epilepsy was brought
on by concern for his family in Cuba. (138)

Lopez' wife said she received a letter from him in about November
1963, saying he had returned to Cuba once more. She said she had been
surprised, although he had mentioned returning, to Cuba before he
left for Tampa in November 1963. In a later letter, Lopez told his
wife he had received financial assistance for his trip to Cuba from an
organization in Tampa. His wife explained that he would not have
been able to pay for the trip without help. She said, however, he had
not had earlier contacts with Cuban refugee organizations. (139)

11The committee noted the discrepancies in this message, as
follows: the spelling of Lopes, for Lopez; the November 13 date and passport number 319962, issued July 13,
1960; and Lopez entering Mexico on foot. In its 1977 Task Force Report, the CIA cited the several
"inaccuracies," as they had been repeated in the report of the Senate Select Committee,
as reason to refute the report itself. The TFR pointed out that Lopez' name had been misspelled
"Lopes," that it had Lopez entering Mexico on foot, when the CIA had information
that he had traveled by automobile; that it listed incorrect digits for Lopez' passport number;
that it stated that Lopez' Mexican tourist visa had been issued in Nuevo Laredo, not Tampa; and
it reported that he had stayed at the Cuban Embassy. Based on these inaccuracies, the TFR concluded,
"the source was patently and extensively misinformed." The TFR therefore discounted the March cable that held
that the information "jibed" with what the CIA's source had earlier reported. (131)

The discrepancies pointed out in the TFR were apparently intended to explain why the CIA had not taken more aggressive
investigative steps to determine whether there had been a connection between Lopez and
the assassination.

Page 120

Rodriguez said Lopez left Key West in late 1963 for Tampa with
the hope of being able to return to Cuba, explaining he was afraid
he would be drafted into the U.S. military. Rodriguez said Lopez had
not been involved in pro-Castro activity in Key West, but that he was
definitely pro-Castro, and he had once gotten into a fistfight over
his Castro sympathies. (140)

The FBI had previously documented that Lopez had actually been
in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and had attended a
meeting in Tampa on November 20, 1963. In a March 1964 report, it
recounted that at a November 17 meeting of the Tampa FPCC, Lopez
had said he had not been granted permission to return to Cuba but
that he was awaiting a phone call about his return to his homeland.

In that March report, a Tampa FPCC member was quoted as saying
she called a friend in Cuba on December 8, 1963, and was told that
Lopez had arrived safely. She also said that the Tampa chapter of
the FPCC had given Lopez about $190 for the trip to Cuba and that
he had gone to Cuba by way of Mexico because he did not have a
passport. (141)

The March 1964 FBI report stated that Lopez did have a U.S. passport--
it had been issued in January 1960 and was numbered 310162.
His Mexican tourist card was numbered M8-24553 and was issued
November 20, 1963 in Tampa. The report also confirmed that Lopez
entered Mexico via Laredo, Tex., by automobile on November 23, and
he departed for Havana on November 27, the only passenger on a
Cubana flight. He was carrying a Cuban courtesy visa.(142)

Lopez' FBI file contained a memorandum from the Tampa office.
Dated October 26, 1964, it read:

It is felt that information developed regarding the subject
is not sufficient to merit consideration for the Security
Index. (143)

The only information transmitted by the FBI to the Warren Commission,
the committee determined, concerned a passport check on
Lopez. Information sent to the Commission by the FBI on the Tampa
chapter of the FPCC did not contain information on Lopez' activities.
The CIA apparently did not provide any information to the Warren
Commission on Lopez. (144) The committee concurred with the Senate
Select Committee that this omission was egregious, since sources had
reported within a few days of the assassination that the circumstances
surrounding Lopez' travel to Cuba seemed "suspicious." Moreover,
in March 1964, when the Warren Commission's investigation was in
its most active stage, there were reports circulating that Lopez had
been involved in the assassination.

In its 1977 Task Force Report, the CIA responded to the charges of
the Senate committee. It claimed that the agency had carried its investigation
of Lopez as far as it could, having questioned a Cuban
defector about him. (145) The committee found that the absence of
access to additional sources of information was not an adequate explanation
for the agency's failure to consider more seriously the suspicions
of its sources or to report what information it did have to the
Warren Commission. Attempts in the Task Force Report to denigrate
the information that was provided on Lopez were not an adequate
substitute for enabling the Warren Commission itself to pursue the
leads more aggressively.

Page 121

From the information gathered by the FBI, there appeared to be
plausible reasons both for Lopez' desire to return to Cuba and for his
solicitation of financial aid from the Tampa FPCC chapter. Lopez'
contacts in Florida appeared to have been innocent and not connected
with the assassination, and while there was a suggestion in the Senate
committee's report that Lee Harvey Oswald also was in contact with
the Tampa FPCC chapter, the committee could find no evidence of it.
Nor could the committee find any evidence that Oswald was in contact
with Lopez.

Lopez' association with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, however,
coupled with the facts that the dates of his travel to Mexico via
Texas coincide with the assassination, plus the reports in Mexico that
Lopez' activities were "suspicious," all amount to a troublesome
circumstance that the committee was unable to resolve with
confidence.

(f) Other allegations

The committee also pursued allegations of Cuban complicity that
were not suggested by the investigation of the Senate committee. For
example, it looked into an allegation by one Autulio Ramirez Ortiz,
who hijacked an aircraft to Cuba in 1961. Ramirez claimed that while
being held by the Cuban Government, he worked in an intelligence
facility where he found a dossier on Lee Harvey Oswald. (146) It
was labeled the "Oswald-Kennedy" file and contained a photograph of
"Kennedy's future assassin."(147) In the Spanish language manuscript
of a book he wrote Ramirez claimed the Oswald file read, in
part "... The KGB has recommended this individual ...He is a
North American, married to an agent of the Soviet organism who has
orders to go and reside in the United States. Oswald is an adventurer.
Our Embassy in Mexico has orders to get in contact with him. Be
very careful."(148)

The committee, in executive session, questioned Ramirez, who had
been returned to the United States to serve a 20-year Federal sentence
for hijacking.(149) He testified he was unable to describe the photograph
he had allegedly seen and that the writing in the file was in
Russian, a language he does not speak. (150)

The committee sought from the FBI and CIA independent evidence
of the accuracy of Ramirez' allegations, but there was no corroboration
of the existence of an "Osvaldo-Kennedy" file to be found. On the
other hand, in every instance where there was independent evidence
of allegations made by Ramirez (the identities of Cuban officials
named by him, for example) Ramirez' statements were found to be
accurate.(151)

In the end, however, the committee was forced to dismiss Ramirez'
story about the "Osvaldo-Kennedy" file. The decisive factor was the
committee's belief that the Cuban intelligence system in the 1961-63
period was too sophisticated to have been infiltrated by Ramirez in
the manner he had described. While some details of his story could
be corroborated, the essential aspects of his allegation were incredible.

The committee also considered the allegation that appeared in an
article in a 1967 issue of the National Enquirer, written by a British
freelancer named Comer Clark.(152) Purportedly based on an exclusive
interview with Castro, it quoted the Cuban President as admitting to having
heard of threats by Oswald to assassinate president

Page 122

Kennedy. According to Clark, Castro told him that while at the Cuban
consulate in Mexico City in September 1963, Oswald vowed he would kill the President. (153)

On a trip to Havana in April 1978, the committee met with President
Castro and asked him about the charge. Castro denied there
had ever been an interview with Clark.(154) He also suggested that
had such a threat been overheard by Cuban officials, they and he would
have been morally obligated to transmit it to U.S. authorities.(155)

The committee did not agree that the Cuban Government would have
been obligated to report the threat. Nothing in the evidence indicated
that the threat should have been taken seriously, if it had occurred,
since Oswald had behaved in an argumentative and obnoxious fashion during
his visit to the consulate. (156) Cuban officials would have
been justified, the committee reasoned, to have considered the threat
an idle boast, deserving no serious attention.

The accuracy of Clark's account was also undermined by the committee's
investigation of his background. Clark had been the author
of articles with such sensational titles as "British Girls as Nazi Sex
Slaves," "I Was Hitler's Secret Love" and "German Plans to Kidnap
the Royal Family." The committee was unable to question Clark himself, as he
had since died. (157)

Despite the committee's doubts about the Clark interview with
Castro, it was informed that the substance of it had been independently
reported to the U.S. Government. A highly confidential but reliable
source reported that Oswald had indeed vowed in the presence of
Cuban consulate officials to assassinate the President. (158)

This information prompted the committee to pursue the report further
in file reviews and interviews. The files that were reviewed included
records of conversations of relevant people at appropriate times and
places. Only one of them provided any possible corroboration. It was
the record of a reported conversation by an employee of the Cuban
Embassy named Luisa Calderon. (159) The absence of other corroboration
must be considered significant.

A blind memorandum 12 provided by the CIA to the committee
contained Calderon's pertinent remarks:

1. A reliable source reported that on November 22, 1963,
several hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,
Luisa Calderon Carralero, a Cuban employee of the Cuban Embassy in
Mexico City, and believed to be a member of the Cuban Directorate
General of Intelligence (DGI), discussed news of the assassination
with an acquaintance. Initially, when asked if she had heard the latest news,
Calderon replied, in what appeared to be a joking manner, "Yes, of course,
I knew almost before Kennedy."
2. After further discussion of the news accounts about the assassination,
the acquaintance asked Calderon what else she had learned. Calderon replied
that they [assumed to refer to personnel of the Cuban Embassy] learned about it a little
while ago. (160)

12there is no indication on a blind memorandum of either
origin or destination.

Page 123

Luisa Calderon's statements on the day of the assassination could
be construed as either an indication of foreknowledge or mere braggadocio.
The preponderance of the evidence led the committee to find
that it was braggadocio. While the committee attempted to interview
Calderon in Cuba, it was unable to, since she was ill. (161)
Nevertheless, it forwarded interrogatories to her, which she responded to denying
foreknowledge of the assassination.(162) The committee also
interviewed other employees of the Cuban consulate in Mexico City
in 1963 all of whom denied the allegation.(163) While it may be
argued that they had a reason to do so because of Castro's view that the
Cuban Government would have had a moral obligation to report the
threat had it occurred, these officials, in the committee's judgment,
indicated by their demeanor that they were testifying truthfully.

The committee also made a judgment about the risk that would have
been incurred by Cubans had they testified falsely on this issue or by
those who might have orchestrated their false testimony. Based on
newspaper reporting alone, the Cuban Government might reasonably
have believed that the committee had access to extensive information
about conversations in the Cuban consulate in Mexico City and that
such information might have provided convincing evidence of a coverup.
To have been caught in a lie in public testimony in the United
States 13 would have been a major embarrassment for the Cuban Government,
one that might have implied more than moral responsibility
for failing to report a threat against President Kennedy in advance of
the assassination.

On balance, the committee did not believe that Oswald voiced a threat to
Cuban officials. However reliable the confidential source may be, the committee
found it to be in error in this instance.

The committee investigated other aspects of Oswald's trip to Mexico
City in September 1963 to see if it could develop information that
bore on the question of a Cuban conspiracy. It considered the claim
by the Cuban consul in Mexico City in 1963, Eusebio Azcue, that a
man posing as Oswald applied for a Cuban visa. 14 It also
investigated two plausible, though unsubstantiated, allegations of activities
that had not previously been publicly revealed:

That of a Mexican author, Elena Garro de Paz, who claimed
that Oswald and two companions had attended a "twist" party
at the home of Ruben Duran, brother-in-law of Silvia Duran, the
secretary of Cuban consul Azcue who dealt with Oswald when
he applied at the consulate for a Cuban visa.(164)
That of a Mexican named Oscar Contreras who, in 1967,
claimed he had met Oswald on the campus of the National Autonomous
University of Mexico. (165)

The committee conducted extensive interviews with respect to these
allegations. (166)

The significance of the Elena Garro allegation, aside from its pointing
to Oswald associations in Mexico City that the Warren Commis-

13In addition to a tape-recorded interview with President Castro
in Havana, the committee heard testimony in public hearing from two former Cuban counsuls in Mexico
City, Eusebio Azcue and Alfredo Mirabel, and it tape-recorded an interview with Silvia Duran, a secretary at the Cuban
Consulate in Mexico City in 1963 who had had one or more encounters with Oswald.

14Details of the issue of an alleged Oswald imposter are presented
in section I D 4.

Page 124

sion did not investigate, lay in her description of one of the companions
as gaunt and blond-haired. (167) These are characteristics that
both Azcue and Silvia Duran attributed to the visitor to the Cuban
consulate who identified himself as Lee Harvey Oswald. (168) Even
though "gaunt and blond-haired" did not describe Oswald, Duran
said that the American visitor was the man later arrested in the assassination
of the President. (169) Azcue, on the other hand, insisted that
the visitor was not the individual whose published photograph was
that of Oswald. (170)

The committee was unable to obtain corroboration for the Elena
Garro allegation, although Silvia Duran did confirm that there was
a "twist" party at her brother-in-law's home in the fall of 1963 and
that Elena Garro was there. (171) She denied, however, that Oswald
was there, insisting that she never saw Oswald outside of the Cuban
consulate.(172) The committee was unable to check the story with
official U.S. investigative agencies because they failed to pursue it,
even though they were aware of it in 1964.15

The committee's investigation was sufficient, however, to develop a
conclusion that the Elena Garro allegation had warranted investigation
when it was first received by the CIA in October 1964. Even in
the late 1960's, at a time when Garro and others were available for
questioning, there was still the potential for sufficient corroboration 16
to make the allegation worth pursuing. Further, while the allegation
did not specifically show a Cuban conspiracy, it did indicate significant
Oswald associations that were not known to the Warren
Commission.

The other Oswald association in Mexico City that might have proven
significant, had it been pursued, was the one alleged by Oscar Contreras,
a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The committee made an effort to investigate this allegation. Silvia
Duran, for example, admitted to the committee. that she had advised
Oswald he might obtain a Cuban visa if he could get a letter of recommendation
from a Mexican in good standing with the Cuban revolutionary hierarchy. (175)
The committee also learned that the chairman
of the philosophy department at the National Autonomous University,
Ricardo Guerra, held seminars from time to time at the Duran home
on Kant, Hegel, and Marx. (176) The committee speculated that these
circumstances might explain why Oswald contacted Contreras, who
reported to Mexican authorities that Oswald approached him in Sept-

15The committee's investigation in Mexico City was further inhibited
by the refusal of the CIA to make available its sources on the Elena Garro allegation, and, as a
committee of the U.S. Congress in a foreign country, it was bound by a decision of the Mexican
Government to permit its citizens to decide individually if they wished to meet with committee
representatives (173)
The CIA, moreover, had failed to pursue the Elena Garro allegation adequately in 1964.
A review of the CIA file indicated that the allegation was treated skeptically because Agency officials apparently
considered Elena Garro to be other than totally rational. Inquiries of sources were ordered, but the
files do not indicate that any responses were actively solicited or, in fact, received. The Agency
files on this aspect of the case are devoid of any substance that would suggest an active
CIA investigation.
The committee did ultimately locate Elena Garro in Europe, but attempts by telephone to persuade her to come to the
United States to testify did not succeed (174).

16Elena Garro maintained that after the assassination she wanted to report her
story to authorities but that she was warned of possible danger by a man named Manuel Calvillo.
Elena Garro, alleged that Calvillo placed her in the Hotel Vermont in Mexico City where she remained for several days. In 1967, the CIA did in
fact receive confirmation of Elena Garro's stay at the Hotel Vermont immediately after the assassination.

Page 125

tember 1963 following a roundtable discussion at the school of philosophy. 17

The committee's attempts to contact Contreras were frustrated. On
two occasions, the Mexican Government said he would be available for
an interview, but neither materialized. The committee also was unable
to contract Guerra. who in 1978 was Mexico's Ambassador to East Germany. (177)
The significance of the Contreras allegation, therefore, remains largely indeterminate.

The committee also pondered what deductions might be drawn from
Azcue's conviction that the man who applied for a Cuban visa was not
Oswald. One possibility considered, although ultimately rejected by
the committee, was that there was a sinister association between Oswald
and the Castro regime that Azcue was attempting to conceal.

The committee weighed the evidence on both sides of the Oswald-at-the-Cuban-consulate issue:

That it was Oswald was indicated by the testimony of Silvia
Duran and Alfredo Mirabal, who was in the process of succeeding
Azcue as Cuban consul when the visit occurred in late September 1963.
They both identified Oswald from post-assassination
photographs as the man who applied for a Cuban visa.
That it was not Oswald was a possibility raised by the committee's
inability to secure a photograph of him entering or leaving
the Soviet Embassy or the Cuban consulate. The committee obtained
evidence from the Cuban Government that such photographs were being
taken routinely in 1963. Further, the committee found that Oswald
paid at least five visits to the Soviet Embassy or the Cuban consulate. 18(178)

The committee also sought to understand the significance of a Secret
Service investigation of threats against President Kennedy by pro-Castro
Cubans. In April 1961, for example, when the President and Mrs. Kennedy
were scheduled to address a special meeting of the Council of the
Organization of American States, the State Department reported that
Cuba would be represented by one Quentin Pino
Machado. Machado, a Cuban diplomat, described as a character of ill
repute, armed and dangerous, ultimately did not attend the meeting. (179)

On November 27, 1963, a Miami Secret Service informant told Special Agent
Ernest Aragon that if the assassination involved an international
plot in which Castro had participated, then Castro's agent in
the plot would have been Machado, a well-known terrorist. There were

17The Contreras story, as in the case of the Elena Garro allegation,
was not adequately pursued when it first came to the attention of the CIA in 1967. At that time, the
Agency was informed by the U.S. Consul in Tampico, Mexico, that Contreras had passed the information
to him. An Agency employee later discussed the matter in more detail with the Consul and
then met with Contreras himself. The CIA confirmed that Contreras had been a student in 1963 and was politically
a strong supporter of Fidel Castro. The Contreras story was considered, according to Agency files,
to be the first significant development in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination after 1965.
Nevertheless, no attempt was made to determine who Contreras' associates were or how Oswald might have contacted him.
Instead, the case was simply reported to the FBI. According to FBI files, no followup investigation
was conducted.

18The committee believed that photographs of Oswald might have
been taken and subsequently lost or destroyed. The committee did obtain a photograph of a man whose
description seemed to match that given by Azcue and Duran of the "gaunt and blond-haired" visitor
to the Cuban consulate. They each stated, however, that he was not the man they had described
as the one who, in the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, had applied for a visa to Cuba.

Page 126

rumors in the Miami Cuban community at the time that Machado had
been assigned to escort Oswald from Texas to Cuba after the assassination.
The plan went awry, the report continued, because Oswald had
not been wearing clothing of a prearranged color and because of the
shooting of Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit.(180)

The reports on Machado, along with other suspicions of Castro
complicity in the assassination, were forwarded only in brief summary
form by the Secret Service to the Warren Commission. The committee
could find no record of follow-up action. (181) The committee's
investigation of actions by the Secret Service subsequent to the assassination,
however, revealed the most extensive work of the Agency to have been in
response to reports of pro-Castro Cuban involvement. (182)

(g) The committee's trip to Cuba

The committee took its investigation to Cuba in the spring and summer
of 1978. It sought information on numerous allegations, such as
those mentioned above, and it put to President Castro the question of
Cuban involvement in the assassination. The committee found the
Cuban Government to be cooperative, both in supplying written reports
and documents in response to questions and by making a number
of its citizens available for interviews. (183) While the committee was
unable to interview Luisa Calderon personally, the Cuban Government
did permit its former consuls in Mexico City, Eusebio Azcue and Alfredo
Mirabal, to come to Washington to testify in a public hearing
of the committee. (184)

In response to the question of Cuban complicity in the assassination,
Castro replied:

That [the Cuban Government might have been involved in
the President's death] was insane. From the ideological point
of view it was insane. And from the political point of view,
it was a tremendous insanity. I am going to tell you here
that nobody, nobody ever had the idea of such things. What
would it do? We just tried to defend our folks here, within
our territory. Anyone who subscribed to that idea would have
been judged insane ...absolutely sick. Never, in 20 years
of revolution, I never heard anyone suggest nor even speculate
about a measure of that sort, because who could think of the
idea of organizing the death of the President of the United
States. That would have been the most perfect pretext for the
United States to invade our country. which is what I have
tried to prevent for all these years, in every possible sense.
Since the United States is much more powerful than we are,
what could we gain from a war with the United States? The
United States would lose nothing. The destruction would
have been here. (185)

Castro added:

I want to tell you that the death of the leader does not
change the system. It has never done that. (186)

In the interview, Castro also commented on his speech of September 7, 1963,
which on its face might have been viewed as an indication

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that Castro may have been prompted to retaliate for a CIA-inspired
attempt on his life:

So, I said something like those plots start to set a very bad
precedent, a very serious one--that could become a boomerang
against the authors of those actions ...but I did not
mean to threaten by that. I did not mean even that ...not
in the least ...but rather, like a warning that we knew;
that we had news about it; and that to set those precedents
of plotting the assassination of leaders of other countries
would be a very bad precedent ...something very negative.
And, if at present, the same would happen under the
same circumstances, I would have no doubt in saying the
same as I said [then] because I didn't mean a threat by that.
I didn't say it as a threat. I did not mean by that that we were
going to take measures--similar measures-- like a retaliation
for that. We never meant that because we knew that there
were plots. For 3 years, we had known there were plots
against us. So the conversation came about very casually,
you know; but I would say that all these plots or attempts
were part of the everyday life.(187)

Finally, President Castro noted that although relations between
the United States and Cuba were strained during the Kennedy administration,
by 1963 there were definite hopes for reconciliation. (188)

The committee confirmed from the historic record that, in 1963, the
Cuban Government made several overtures. While, for the most part,
Kennedy did not respond favorably, he did, in November, direct that
the possibility of holding talks be explored by United Nations Delegate
William Atwood with Cuban United Nations Ambassador Carlos
Lechuga. (189) There was also reason to believe that French
journalist Jean Daniel was asked by Kennedy to relay a peace message to
Castro.(190) At least, that was how Castro interpreted it when he
met with Daniel on November 20, 1963. (191)

In his interview with the committee, Castro referred to these two
developments toward rapprochement, as he viewed them, suggesting
that he would not have had a motive to eliminate President Kennedy.
Instead, it would have been to his advantage, Castro insisted, to have
pursued the prospect for better relations that had been portended. (192)

(h) Deficiencies of the 1963-64 investigation

In attempting to resolve the question of possible Cuban conspiracy,
the committee concluded that a definitive answer had to come, if at
all, largely from the investigation conducted in 1963-64 by the Warren
Commission and the FBI and CIA. What the committee was able
to do 15 years later could fill in important details, but it could not
make up for basic insufficiencies. Unfortunately, the committee found
that there were in fact significant deficiencies in the earlier investigation.
The Warren Commission knew far less than it professed to know about
Oswald's trip to Mexico and his possible association with pro-Castro
agents in Mexico and elsewhere. This was true, in part, because the
Commission had demanded less of the FBI and CIA than called for in its
mandate. (193)

Page 128

For its part, the FBI mechanically ran out thousands of leads, but
it failed to make effective use of its Cuban Section of the Domestic
Intelligence Division or to develop and systematically pursue investigative
hypotheses of possible Cuban complicity. It must be said that
the FBI generally exhausted its resources in confirming the case
against Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin, a case that Director
J. Edgar Hoover, at least, seemed determined to make within 24 hours
of the assassination. (194)

With respect to the CIA, the committee determined that it could
have been better equipped to investigate the question of Cuban complicity. 19
The CIA had, at the time, only limited access to Cuban
intelligence defectors, and most of its information sources inside Cuba
were better equipped to report on economic developments and troop
movements than on political decisions, especially sensitive ones, such
as those involving political assassination.(198)

As the CIA admitted in its 1977 Task Force Report, it could have
taken "broader initiatives" in pursuing the investigation. The committee
found that such initiatives could have included more comprehensive
instructions on debriefing Cuban sources and more explicit
tasking of stations for specific investigative efforts.

With respect to the CIA's investigation of possible Cuban complicity,
however, the committee found that the Agency's shortcomings
were not attributable to any improper motive. The committee found
that the CIA did generally gather and analyze the information that
came to its attention regarding possible Cuban involvement, at least
until the Warren Commission made its report in 1964. Indeed, the
committee noted that the Agency acted not only out of dedication,
but out of a specific motivation related to Cuba. The officers, agents
and employees in the Cuba-related divisions had devoted their careers
to the overthrow of Castro, and evidence of his participation in the
assassination, if it had existed and could have been brought to light,
would have vindicated their long-frustrated efforts, of not, in fact,
led directly to a U.S. invasion of Cuba and destruction of the Castro
regime.

That being said, the committee did not ignore the possibility that
certain CIA officials who were aware that close scrutiny of U.S.-Cuban
relations in the early 1960's could have inadvertently exposed
the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro, might have attempted to prevent
the CIA's assassination investigation or that of the Warren Commission
from delving deeply into the question of Cuban complicity. The
committee determined, however, that only CIA Deputy Director Richard
Helms would have been in a position to have had both the requisite
knowledge and the power to accomplish such a coverup, and it was
satisfied, on the basis of its investigation, that it was highly unlikely
he in fact did so. (199)

19With respect to the incident at the home of Sylvia Odio in
Dallas (see sec. C 3), the CIA had developed since 1963 the ability to identify from physical
descriptions possible intelligence agents who may have been involved. In fact, at the committee's
request, the CIA attempted to identify Odio's visitors, and it determined that they may have been
members of Cuban intelligence. (195) The committee showed photographs supplied by the CIA to Odio
who stated they did not appear to be the visitors in question. (196) The committee came to the
conclusion that had she been shown photographs in 1963, when the event was clearer in her mind, she might have been
able to make an identification. It is also regrettable that the CIA did not make use of a
defector from Cuba who had worked in intelligence and who might have been able to identify the
Odio visitors. (197)

Page 129

While noting the deficiencies in the CIA assassination investigation,
the committee was impressed with certain overseas capabilities of the
CIA in 1963. The Agency had, for example, comprehensive coverage of
anti-Castro Cuban groups that, in turn, had extensive information
sources in and out of Cuba. (200) Thus, while it was flawed in certain
specific respects, the committee concluded that the CIA assassination
investigation could, in fact, be relied on--with only limited reservations--
as a general indicator of possible Cuban involvement. That investigation
found no evidence of Cuban complicity.

(i) Summary of the findings

While the committee did not take Castro's denials at face value,
it found persuasive reasons to conclude that the Cuban Government
was not involved in the Kennedy assassination. First, by 1963 there
were prospects for repairing the hostility that had marked
relations between the two countries since Castro had come to power. Second,
the risk of retaliation that Cuba would have incurred by conspiring
in the assassination of an American President must have canceled out
other considerations that might have argued for that act. President
Castro's description of the idea as "insane" is appropriate. And there
was no evidence indicating an insane or grossly reckless lack of judgment
on the part of the Cuban Government. Third, the CIA had both
the motive to develop evidence of Cuban involvement and access to at
least substantial, if incomplete, information bearing on relevant aspects
of it, had such involvement existed. Its absence, therefore, must
be weighed in the balance. Finally, the Cuban Government's cooperation
with this committee in the investigation must be a factor in any
judgment. In conclusion, the committee found, on the basis of the
evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved
in the assassination of President Kennedy.

3. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE
BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT ANTI-CASTRO CUBAN GROUPS, AS GROUPS, WERE NOT
INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY, BUT THAT THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE DOES
NOT PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY THAT INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED

The committee investigated possible involvement in the assassination
by a number of anti-Castro Cuban groups and individual activists for two primary reasons:

First, they had the motive, based on what they considered
President Kennedy's betrayal of their cause, the liberation of
Cuba from the Castro regime; the means, since they were trained
and practiced in violent acts, the result of the guerrilla warfare
they were waging against Castro; and the opportunity, whenever
the President, as he did from time to time, appeared at public
gatherings, as in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Second, the committee's investigation revealed that certain associations
of Lee Harvey Oswald were or may have been with anti-Castro activists.

The committee, therefore, paid close attention to the activities of
anti-Castro Cubans--in Miami, where most of them were concentrated
and their organizations were headquartered,(1) and in New Orleans

Page 130

and Dallas, where Oswald, while living in these cities in the months
preceding the assassination, reportedly was in contact with anti-Castro
activists.(2)

The Warren Commission did not, of course, ignore Oswald's ties
to anti-Castroites. From the evidence that was available in 1964, two
Warren Commission staff attorneys, W. David Slawson and William
Coleman, went so far as to speculate that Oswald, despite his public
posture as a Castro sympathizer, might actually have been an agent of
anti-Castro exiles.(3) Indeed, pressing for further investigation of
the possibility, they wrote a memorandum which read in part:

The evidence here could lead to an anti-Castro involvement
in the assassination on some sort of basis as this: Oswald
could have become known to the Cubans as being strongly
pro-Castro. He made no secret of his sympathies, so the anti-Castro
Cubans must have realized that law enforcement authorities
were also aware of Oswald's feelings and that, therefore,
if he got into trouble, the public would also learn
of them ...Second, someone in the anti-Castro organization
might have been keen enough to sense that Oswald had a
penchant for violence ...On these facts, it is possible that
some sort of deception was used to encourage Oswald to kill
the President when he came to Dallas ...The motive of this
would, of course, be the expectation that after the President
was killed, Oswald would be caught or at least his identity
ascertained, the law enforcement authorities and the public
would blame the assassination on the Castro government, and
a call for its forceful overthrow would be irresistible.... (4)

While it is seemingly in contradiction of Oswald's personal character
and known public posture, the committee seriously considered,
therefore, the possibility of an anti-Castro conspiracy in the assassination
(perhaps with Oswald unaware of ifs true nature). It is appropriate
to begin that consideration with an examination of the history
of United States-Cuban relations from the perspective of the anti-Castro
movement, beginning with the victorious end of the revolution
on January 1, 1959. (5)

(a) The anti-Castro Cuban perspective

The anti-Castro movement began not long after Fidel Castro assumed
control of Cuba. (6) at first, the Cuban people cheered the revolution
and its leader for the defeat of the dictatorial Batista regime,
but it was not long before many former supporters found reason to
condemn the new premier's policies and politics. (7) Many Cubans were
deeply disillusioned when it became apparent that the Castro government
was renouncing the country's long affiliation with the United
States and moving closer to the Soviet Union. (8) As Castro's preference
for Marxism became evident, underground opposition movements were born. (9)
They survived for a time within Cuba, but as
the effectiveness of Castro's militia system was recognized, they retreated
to the exile communities of Miami and other cities in the
United States. (10)

The U.S. Government was responsive to the efforts of exiles to remove
a Communist threat from the Caribbean, only 90 miles from the

Page 131

Florida coast, and to recapture business investments lost to the nationalization
of industry in Cuba. (11) An official, yet covert, program
to train and equip exiles determined to overthrow Castro was sanctioned
by President Eisenhower and his successor, President Kennedy,
and carried out by the American intelligence agencies, particularly the
Central Intelligence Agency. (12). The Cuban exiles, dependent on the
United States for arms and logistical support, had little choice but
to put their trust in Washington. (13)

Their trust collapsed however, at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961,
when an exile invasion of Cuba was annihilated by Castro's
troops. (14) The failure of American airpower to support the landing
shattered the confidence of the anti-Castro Cubans in the U.S. Government.(15)
They blamed President Kennedy, and he publicly accepted
responsibility for the defeat. (16)

President Kennedy's readiness to take the blame for the Bay of
Pigs served to intensify the anger of the exiles.(17) In executive
session before the committee, Manuel Antonio Varona, who in 1961 was
the head of the united exile organization, the Revolutionary Democratic
Front, told of a tense and emotional encounter with the President
at the White House, as hope for the invasion was fading.(18)
"We were not charging Mr. Kennedy with anything," Varona testified.(19)
"We knew he was not in charge of the military efforts directly. Nevertheless, President
Kennedy told us he was the one--the only one responsible." (20)

A noted Cuban attorney, Mario Lazo, summed up Cuban feeling toward
President Kennedy in his book, "Dagger in the Heart":

The Bay of Pigs was wholly self-inflicted in Washington.
Kennedy told the truth when he publicly accepted responsibility...
The heroism of the beleaguered Cuban Brigade had been rewarded by betrayal,
defeat, death for many of them, long and cruel imprisonment for the rest. The Cuban
people ...had always admired the United States as
strong, rich, generous--but where was its sense of honor and
the capacity of its leaders? (21)

President Kennedy was well aware of the bitter legacy of the Bay
of Pigs debacle. Far from abandoning the Cuban exiles, he set out
to convince them of his loyalty to their cause. One of the most emotionally
charged events of his relationship with the Cuban exiles occurred on December 29, 1962,
at the Orange Bowl in Miami. (22) He had come to welcome the
survivors of the invasion force, Brigade 2506, the 1,200 men who had
been ransomed from Cuba after almost 20 months in prison.(23)
The President was presented with the brigade flag in a dramatic and tumultuous scene.

The euphoria was false and misleading. Although the Cuban exiles
cheered President Kennedy that day, there also coursed through the
crowd a bitter resentment among some who felt they were witnessing
a display of political hypocrisy. Later, it would be claimed that the
brigade feeling against President Kennedy was so strong that the
presentation nearly did not take place, and it would be alleged (incorrectly,
as it turned out) that the brigade flag given to Kennedy was
actually a replica.(25)

Page 132

It is not possible to know fully how the Bay of Pigs defeat changed
President Kennedy's attitude toward Cuba, but when journalists Taylor Branch
and George Crile wrote in Harper's Magazine about a
massive infusion of U.S. aid to clandestine anti-Castro operations in
the wake of the Bay of Pigs, they titled their article, "The Kennedy
Vendetta."(26) What is known is that the period between the Bay of
Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 can be characterized
as the high point of anti-Castro activity. (27) Miami, the center of the
exile community, became a busy staging ground for armed infiltrations
Cuba.(28) While not every raid was supported or even known
about in advance by Government agencies, the United States played
a key role in monitoring, directing and supporting the anti-Castro
Cubans. (29) Although this effort was cloaked in secrecy, most Cubans
in the exile community knew what was happening and who was supporting
the operations. (30)

(1) The missile crisis and its aftermath.--At the time of the missile
crisis in October 1962, the Cuban exiles were initially elated at the
prospect of U.S. military action that might topple the Castro regime.(31)
In the end, it seemed to the world that President Kennedy
had the best of the confrontation with Castro and Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev by demanding, and getting, the withdrawal of offensive
missiles and bombers from Cuba. From the exiles' perspective, however,
they had been compromised, since as part of the bargain, President
Kennedy made a pledge not to invade Cuba. 20(32)

Anti-Castro forces in the United States were all the more embittered
in the spring of 1963 when the Federal Government closed down many
of their training camps and guerrilla bases. (34) In cases where government
raids intercepted the illegal arms transfers, weapons were
confiscated and arrests were made.(35) Some anti-Castro operations
did continue, however, right up to the time of the assassination, though
the committee. found that U.S. backing had by that time been
reduced. (36)

(2) Attitude of anti-Castro Cubans toward Kennedy.--President
Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by
1963. Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting
of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb
of Farmer's Branch on October 1, 1963. (37) In it, a Cuban identified
as Nestor Castellanos vehemently criticized the United States and
blamed President Kennedy for the U.S. Government's policy of "non-interference"
with respect to the Cuban issue. (38) Holding a copy of
the September 26 edition of the Dallas Morning News, featuring a
front-page account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November,
Castellanos vented his hostility without restraint:

CASTELLANOS. ...we're waiting for Kennedy the 22d,
buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're
going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas. Mr. good
ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even call him President Kennedy He
stinks.

20The United States never actually signed the pledge, since
it was conditioned on United Nations inspection of the weapons withdrawal that Castro would
not honor. The fine point of signing the pledge was of little importance to the Cuban exiles,
however, who could point out later that no invasion did, in fact, occur. (33)

Page 133

QUESTIONER. Are you insinuating that since this downfall
came through the leader there [Castro in Cuba], that this
might come to us ...?
CASTELLANOS. Yes ma'am, your present leader. He's the one
who is doing everything right now to help the United States
to become Communist.21(39)

(b) The committee investigation

The committee initiated its investigation by identifying the most
violent and frustrated anti-Castro groups and their leaders from
among the more than 100 Cuban exile organizations in existence in
November 1963. (40) These groups included Alpha 66, the Cuban Revolutionary
Junta (JURE), Commandos L, the Directorio Revolutionary Estudiantil (DRE),
the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) which included the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD), the
Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio (JGCE), the 30th of November, the
International Penetration Forces (InterPen), the Revolutionary Recovery
Movement (MRR), and the Ejercito Invasor Cubano (EIC).(41) Their
election evolved both from the committee's independent field investigation
and the examination of the files and records maintained by the Federal and
local agencies then monitoring Cuban exile activity. These agencies included local police
departments, the FBI, the CIA, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (now
the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA), the Customs Service, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Defense.

The groups that received the committee's attention were "action
groups"--those most involved in military actions and propaganda
campaigns. Unlike most others, they did not merely talk about anti-Castro
operations, they actually carried out infiltrations into Cuba,
planned, and sometimes attempted, Castro's assassination, and shipped
arms into Cuba. These were also the groups whose leaders felt most
betrayed by U.S. policy toward Cuba and by the President; they were
also those whose operations were frustrated by American law enforcement
efforts after the missile crisis.

(1) Homer S. Echevarria.---For the most part the committee found
that the anti-Castro Cuban leaders were more vociferous than potentially
violent in their tirades against the President. Nevertheless, it
was unable to conclude with certainty that all of the threats were
benign. For example, one that the committee found particularly disturbing
especially so, since it was not thoroughly looked into in the 1963-64
investigation came to the attention of the Secret Service within
days of the President's death, prompting the Acting Special Agent-in-Charge
of the Chicago field office to write an urgent memorandum
indicating he had received reliable information of "a group in the
Chicago area who [sic] may have a connection with the J.F.K. assassination."(43)
The memorandum was based on a tip from an informant who reported a conversation
on November 21, 1963, with a Cuban activist named Homer S. Echevarria.(44)
They were discussing an illegal arms sale, and Echevarria was quoted as saying his group now

21The committee uncovered no evidence that linked Castellanos to the
assassination. His speech is quoted to illustrate the depth of feeling that existed in the
Cuban exile community in 1963.

Page 134

had "plenty of money" and that his backers would proceed "as soon as
we take care of Kennedy." (45)

Following the initial memorandum, the Secret Service instructed
its informant to continue his association with Echevarria and notified
the Chicago FBI field office. (46) It learned that Echevarria might
have been a member of the 30th of November anti-Castro organization,
that he was associated with Juan Francisco Blanco-Fernandez, military
director of the DRE, and that the arms deal was being financed
through one Paulino Sierra Martinez by hoodlum elements in Chicago
and elsewhere.(47)

Although the Secret Service recommended further investigation,
the FBI initially took the position that the Echevarria case "was primarily
a protection matter and that the continued investigation would
be left to the U.S. Secret Service," (48) and that the Cuban group in
question was probably not involved in illegal activities. (49) The Secret
Service initially was reluctant to accept this position, since it had
developed evidence that illegal acts were, in fact, involved. (50)
Then, on November 29, 1963, President Johnson created the Warren Commission
and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility in the
assassination.(51) Based on its initial understanding that the President's
order meant primary, not exclusive, investigative responsibility,
the Secret Service continued its efforts;(52) but when the FBI made
clear that it wanted the Secret Service to terminate its investigation, (53)
it did so, turning over its files to the FBI. (54) The FBI, in
turn, did not pursue the Echevarria case. (55)

While it was unable to substantiate the content of the informant's
alleged conversations with Echevarria or any connection to the events
in Dallas, the committee did establish that the original judgment of
the Secret Service was correct, that the Echevarria case did warrant a
thorough investigation. It found, for example, that the 30th of November
group was backed financially by the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba
en el Exilio (JGCE), a Chicago-based organization run by Paulino
Sierra Martinez.(56) JGCE was a coalition of many of the more
active anti-Castro groups that had been rounded in April 1963; it
was dissolved soon after the assassination. 22(57) Its purpose
was to back the activities of the more militant groups, including Alpha 66
and the Student Directorate, or DRE, both of which had reportedly
been in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. (58) Much of JGCE's financial
support, moreover, allegedly came from individuals connected to
organized crime. (59)

As it surveyed the various anti-Castro organizations, the committee
focused its interest on reported contacts with Oswald. Unless an association
with the President's assassin could be established, it is doubtful
that it could be shown that the anti-Castro groups were involved in the
assassination. The Warren Commission, discounting the recommendations
of Slawson and Coleman, had either regarded these contacts as
insignificant or as probably not having been made or else was not aware
of them. (60) The committee could not so easily dismiss them.

22The committee established-- though it could make no
judgment about there having been a connection-- that many of the anti-Castro Cuban groups
ceased their operations at about the time of President Kennedy's assassination. The
Echevarria allegation is also discussed in section I D (1)(b) infra.

Page 135

(2) Antonio Veciana Blanch.--The committee devoted a significant
portion of its anti-Castro Cuban investigation to an alleged contact
with Oswald that had been reported by Antonio Veciana Blanch, the
founder of Alpha 66 which, throughout 1962 and most of 1963, was one
of the most militant of the exile groups. (61) Its repeated hit-and-run
attacks had drawn public criticism from President Kennedy in the
spring of 1963, to which Veciana replied, "We are going to attack
again and again."

Veciana claimed to have had the active support of the CIA, and in
1976 he reported to a Senate investigator that from 1960 to 1973 his
adviser, whom he believed to be a representative of the CIA, was
known to him as Maurice Bishop. (62) Veciana stated that over their
13-year association, he and Bishop met on over 100 occasions and that
Bishop actually planned many Alpha 66 operations. (63) He also said
that he knew the man only, as Maurice Bishop and that all of their
contacts were initiated by Bishop. (64)

Veciana said that Bishop had guided him in planning assassination
attempts of Castro in Havana in 1961 and in Chile in 1971; that Bishop
had directed him to organize Alpha 66 in 1962; and that Bishop, on
ending their relationship in 1973, had paid him $253,000 in cash
for his services over the years. (65) Veciana also revealed that at one
meeting with Bishop in Dallas in late August or early September 1963, a
third party at their meeting was a man he later recognized as Lee Harvey
Oswald. (66)

Veciana also indicated to the committee that subsequent to the assassination,
he had been contacted by Bishop, who was aware that Veciana
had a relative in Cuban intelligence in Mexico.(67) Bishop,
according to Veciana, offered to pay Veciana's relative a large sum
of money if he would say that it was he and his wife who had met
with Oswald in Mexico City.(68) Veciana said he had agreed to contact
his relative, but he had been unable to do so. (69)

The committee pursued the details of Veciana's story, particularly
the alleged meeting with Oswald. It conducted numerous file reviews
and interviews with associates and former associates of Veciana,
to try to confirm the existence of a Maurice Bishop or otherwise assess
Veciana's credibility. On a trip to Cuba, the committee interviewed Veciana's
relative, the Cuban intelligence agent.

While the committee was unable to find corroboration for the contacts
with Bishop, it did substantiate other statements by Veciana. For example,
he did organize an attempted assassination of Castro in
Havana in 1961, (70) and he probably did participate in another plot against
Castro in Chile in 1971. (71) That Veciana was the principal organizer of
the militant Alpha 66 organization was a matter of record. (72)

The committee went to great lengths in its unsuccessful effort to
substantiate the existence of Bishop and his alleged relationship with
Oswald. It reviewed CIA files, but they showed no record of such an
agent or employee. It circulated a sketch via the national news media,
but no one responded with an identification. (73) It pursued a lead originating
with the Senate investigation that a former chief of the CIA's
Western Hemisphere Division of the Directorate of Operations bore a
resemblance to the Bishop sketch.(74) The committee arranged for

Page 136

a chance meeting between Veciana and the CIA officer, who had since
retired. (75) Veciana said he was not Bishop. (76) In an executive session
of the committee, the retired officer testified under oath that he
had never used the name Maurice Bishop, had never known anyone
by that name and had never known Veciana. (77) Veciana, also
before a committee executive session, testified the officer was not
Bishop although he bore a "physical similarity."23(78)

A former Director of the CIA, John McCone, and an agent who had
participated in covert Cuban operations, each told the committee they
recalled that a Maurice Bishop had been associated with the Agency,
though neither could supply additional details.(80) Subsequently,
McCone was interviewed by CIA personnel, and he told them that his
original testimony to the committee had been in error. (81) The agent
did confirm, however, even after a CIA reinterview, that he had seen
the man known to him as Maurice Bishop three or four times at CIA
headquarters in the early 1960's. (82) He did not know his organizational
responsibilities, and he had not known him personally. (83) The
agent also testified that he had been acquainted with the retired officer
who had been chief of the Western Hemisphere Division and that
he was not Bishop. (84)

The committee also requested flies on Bishop from the FBI and
Department of Defense, with negative results.(85) It did discover,
however, that Army intelligence had an operational interest in Veciana as
a source of information on Alpha 66 activities, and that Veciana complied,
hoping to be supplied in return with funds and weapons. (86)
Veciana acknowledged his contacts with the Army, but he
stated that the only relationship those contacts had to Bishop was that
he kept Bishop informed of them. (87)

The CIA's files reflected that the Agency had been in contact with
Veciana three times during the early 1960's, but the Agency maintained
it offered him no encouragement.(88) (The committee could
discover only one piece of arguably contradictory evidence--a record
of $500 in operational expenses, given to Veciana by a person with
whom the CIA had maintained a longstanding operational relationship. (89)
The CIA further insisted that it did not at any time assign
a case officer to Veciana. 24(90)

The committee was left with the task of evaluating Veciana's story,
both with respect to the existence of Maurice Bishop and the alleged
meeting with Oswald, by assessing Veciana's credibility. It found
several reasons to believe that Veciana had been less than candid:

23The committee suspected that Veciana was lying when
he denied that the retired CIA officer was Bishop. The committee recognized that Veciana had an interest
in renewing his anti-Castro operations that might have led him to protect the officer from
exposure as Bishop so they could work together again. For his part, the retired officer aroused
the committee's suspicion when he told the committee he did not recognize Veciana as the founder of Alpha 66,
especially since the officer had once been deeply involved in Agency anti-Castro operations.
Further, a former CIA case officer who was assigned from September 1960 to November 1962 to the
JM/WAVE station in Miami told the committee that the retired officer had in fact used the alias, Maurice Bishop.
The committee also interviewed a former assistant of the retired officer but he could not recall his former superior
ever having used the name or having been referred to as Bishop. (79)

24The committee found it probable that some agency of the
United States assigned a case officer to Veciana, since he was the dominant figure in an extremely active anti-Castro organization.
The committee established that the CIA assigned case officers to Cuban revolutionaries of less
importance than Veciana, though it could not draw from that alone an inference of CIA deception of the committee concerning Veciana, since
Bishop could well have been in the employ of one of the military intelligence agencies or
even perhaps of some foreign power.

Page 137

First, Veciana waited more than 10 years after the assassination to reveal his story.
Second, Veciana would not supply proof of the $253,000 payment from Bishop,
claiming fear of the Internal Revenue Service.
Third, Veciana could not point to a single witness to his meetings
with Bishop, much less with Oswald.
Fourth, Veciana did little to help the committee identify Bishop.

In the absence of corroboration or independent substantiation, the
committee could not, therefore, credit Veciana's story of having met
with Lee Harvey Oswald.

(3) Silvia Odio. The incident of reported contact between Oswald
and anti-Castro Cubans that has gained the most attention over
the years involved Silvia Odio, a member of the Cuban Revolutionary
Junta, or JURE. (91) Mrs. Odio had not volunteered her information
to the FBI.(92) The FBI initially contacted Mrs. Odio after hearing
of a conversation she had had with her neighbor in which she described
an encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald. (93) Subsequently, in
testimony before the Warren Commission, she said that in late September
1963, three men came to her home in Dallas to ask for help
in preparing a fundraising letter for JURE.(94) She stated that
two of the men appeared to be Cubans, although they also had characteristics
that she associated with Mexicans. (95) The two individuals,
she remembered, indicated that their "war" names were "Leopoldo"
and "Angelo."(96) The third man, an American, was introduced to
her as "Leon Oswald," and she was told that he was very much interested
in the anti-Castro Cuban cause. (97)

Mrs. Odio stated that the men told her that they had just come from
New Orleans and that they were then about to leave on a trip. (98)
The next day, one of the Cubans called her on the telephone and told her
that it had been his idea to introduce the American into the underground
"...because he is great, he is kind of nuts." (99) The
Cuban also said that the American had been in the Marine Corps and was an
excellent shot, and that the American had said that Cubans "...don't have any guts
...because President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs,
and some Cubans should have done that, because he was the one that was holding the freedom of
Cuba actually."(100) Mrs. Odio claimed the American was Lee
Harvey Oswald. (101)

Mrs. Odio's sister, who was in the apartment at the time of the visit
by the three men and who stated that she saw them briefly in the hallway
when answering the door, also believed that the American was
Lee Harvey Oswald. (102) Mrs. Odio fixed the date of the alleged visit
as being September 26 or 27.(103) She was positive that the visit
occurred prior to October 1. (104)

The Warren Commission was persuaded that Oswald could not have
been in Dallas on the dates given by Mrs. Odio. (105)
Nevertheless, it requested the FBI to conduct further investigation into her
allegation, and it acknowledged that the FBI had not completed its Odio investigation
at the time its report was published in September 1964. (106)

How the Warren Commission treated the Odio incident is instructive.
In the summer of 1964, the FBI was pressed to dig more deeply
into the Odio allegation. (107) On July 24, chief counsel J. Lee
Rankin,

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in a letter to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, noted, "... the Commission
already possesses firm evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was
on a bus traveling from Houston, Tex., to Mexico City, Mexico, on
virtually the entire day of September 26."(108) J. Wesley
Liebeler, the Warren Commission assistant counsel who had taken Mrs. Odio's
deposition, disagreed, however, that there was firm evidence of
Oswald's bus trip to Mexico City. (109) In a memorandum to another
Commission attorney, Howard Willens, on September 14, 1964,
Liebeler objected to a section of the Warren Report in which it was
stated there was strong evidence that Oswald was on a bus to Mexico
on the date in question.(110) Liebeler argued, "There really is no
evidence at all that [Oswald] left Houston on that bus."(111)
Liebeler also argued that the conclusion that there was "persuasive"
evidence that Oswald was not in Dallas on September 24, 1963, a day
for which his travel was unaccounted, was "too strong." (112)
Liebeler urged Willens to tone down the language, of the report,(113)
contending in his memorandum:"There are problems. Odio may well be right.
The Commission will look bad if it turns out that she is." (114)

On August 23, 1964, Rankin again wrote to Hoover to say, "It is a
matter of some importance to the Commission that Mrs. Odio's allegation
either be proved or disproved." (115) Rankin asked that the FBI
attempt to learn the identities of the three visitors by contacting members
of anti-Castro groups active in the Dallas area, as well as leaders
of the JURE organization. (116) He asked the FBI to check the possibility
that Oswald had spent the night of September 24, in a hotel
in New Orleans, after vacating his apartment. (117) Portions of this
investigation, which were inconclusive in supporting the Warren
Commission's contention that Mrs. Odio was mistaken, were not sent
to Rankin until November 9,(118) at which time the final report already
had been completed. (119)

The FBI did attempt to alleviate the "problems." In a report dated
September 26, it reported the interview of Loran Eugene Hall who
claimed he had been in Dallas in September 1963, accompanied by two
men fitting the general description given by Silvia Odio, and that it
was they who had visited her. (120) Oswald, Hall said, was not one of
the men.(121) Within a week of Hall's statement, the other two men
Hall said had accompanied him. Lawrence Howard and William Seymour, were
interviewed.(122) They denied ever having met Silvia
Odio. (123) Later, Hall himself retracted his statement about
meeting with Mrs. Odio. (124)

Even though the Commission could not show conclusively that
Oswald was not at the Odio apartment, and even though Loran Hall's
story was an admitted fabrication, the Warren report published this
explanation of the Odio incident:

While the FBI had not yet completed its investigation into
this matter at the time the report went to press, the Commission
has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was not at Mrs.
Odio's apartment in September 1963. (125)

Not satisfied with that conclusion, the committee conducted interviews
with and took depositions from the principals--Silvia Odio,(126)
members of her family,(127) and Dr. Burton Einspruch,

Page 139

(128) her psychiatrist. (Mrs. Odio had contacted Dr. Einspruch for
consultation about problems that could not be construed to affect her
perception or credibility.) (129) The committee also set up a conference
telephone call between Dr. Einspruch in Dallas and Silvia Odio
in Miami, during which she related to him the visit of the three men. (130)
Mrs. Odio and Dr. Einspruch concurred that she had told him
of the nighttime meeting shortly after its occurrence, but prior to the
president's assassination.(131)

Loran Hall testified before the committee in executive session on
October 5, 1977; Howard and Seymour were interviewed.(132) The
FBI agent who wrote up the Hall story also testified before the
committee. (133) From a review of FBI files, the committee secured a
list of persons who belonged to the Dallas Chapter of JURE, and the
committee attempted to locate and interview these individuals. Additionally,
staff investigators interviewed the leader of JURE, Manolo
Ray, who was residing in Puerto Rico. (134)

Further, the committee secured photographs of scores of pro-Castro
and anti-Castro activists who might have fit the descriptions of the
two individuals who, Mrs. Odio said, had visited her with Oswald.
(135) The committee also used the resources of the CIA which conducted
a check on all individuals who used the "war" names of "Leopoldo"
and "Angelo", and the name "Leon", or had similar names.
(136) An extensive search produced the names and photographs of
three men who might possibly have, been in Dallas in September
1963. (137) These photographs were shown to Mrs. Odio, but she was
unable to identify them as the men she had seen. (138)

The committee was inclined to believe Silvia Odio. From the
evidence provided in the sworn testimony of the witnesses, it appeared
that three men did visit her apartment in Dallas prior to the Kennedy
assassination and identified themselves as members of an anti-Castro
organization. Based on a judgment of the credibility of Silvia and
Annie Odio, one of these men at least looked like Lee Harvey Oswald
and was introduced to Mrs. Odio as Leon Oswald.

The committee did not agree with the Warren Commission's conclusion
that Oswald could not have been in Dallas at the requisite time.
Nevertheless, the committee itself could reach no definite conclusion
on the specific date of the visit. It could have been as early as September
24, the morning of which Oswald was seen in New Orleans,(139)
but it was more likely on the 25th, 26th or 27th of September. If it was
on these dates, then Oswald had to have had access to private transportation
to have traveled through Dallas and still reached Mexico
City when he did, judging from other evidence developed by both the
Warren Commission and the committee. (140)

(c) Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans

The committee recognized that an association by Oswald with
anti-Castro Cubans would pose problems for its evaluation of the
assassin and what might have motivated him. In reviewing Oswald's
life, the committee found his actions and values to have been those of
a self-proclaimed Marxist who would be bound to favor the Castro
regime in Cuba, or at least not advocate its overthrow. For this reason,
it did not seem likely to the committee that Oswald would have allied

Page 140

himself with an anti-Castro group or individual activist for the sole
purpose of furthering the anti-Castro cause. The committee recognized
the possibility that Oswald might have established contacts with such
groups or persons to implicate the anti-Castro movement in the assassination.
Such an implication might have protected the Castro regime
and other left-wing suspects, while resulting in an intensive investigation
and possible neutralization of the opponents of Castro. It is also
possible, despite his alleged remark about killing Kennedy, that
Oswald had not yet contemplated the President's assassination at the
time of the Odio incident, or if he did, that his assassination plan had
no relation to his anti-Castro contacts, and that he was associating
with anti-Castro activists for some other unrelated reason. A variety
of speculations are possible, but the committee was forced to acknowledge
frankly that, despite its efforts, it was unable to reach firm conclusions
as to the meaning or significance of the Odio incident to the
President's assassination.

(1) Oswald in New Orleans.--Another contact by Lee Harvey
Oswald with anti-Castro Cuban activists that was not only documented,
but also publicized at the time in the news media, occurred
when he was living in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, an especially
puzzling period in Oswald's life. His actions were blatantly
pro-Castro, as he carried a one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee crusade
into the streets of a city whose Cuban population was predominantly
anti-Castro. Yet Oswald's known and alleged associations even
at this time included Cubans who were of an anti-Castro persuasion
and their anti-Communist American supporters.

New Orleans was Oswald's home town; he was born there on October 18, 1939.(141)
In April 1963, shortly after the Walker shooting,
he moved back, having lived in Fort Worth and Dallas since his return
from the Soviet Union the previous June.(142) He spent the
first 2 weeks job hunting, staying with the Murrets, Lillian and
Charles, or "Dutz," as he was called, the sister and brother-in-law of
Oswald's mother, Marguerite. (143) After being hired by the Reily
Coffee Co. as a maintenance man, he sent for his wife Marina and their
baby daughter, who were still in Dallas, and they moved into an apartment
on Magazine Street.

In May, Oswald wrote to Vincent T. Lee, national director of the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee, expressing a desire to open an FPCC
chapter in New Orleans and requesting literature to distribute. (145)
He also had handouts printed, some of which were stamped "L. H. Oswald,
4907 Magazine Street," others with the alias, "A. J. Hidell,
P.O. Box 30016," still others listing the FPCC address as 544 Camp
Street. (146)

In letters written earlier that summer and spring to the FPCC
headquarters in New York, Oswald had indicated that he intended to
rent an office.(147) In one letter he mentioned that he had acquired
a space but had been told to vacate 3 days later because the building
was to be remodeled. The Warren Commission failed to discover any
record of Oswald's having rented an office at 544 Camp and concluded
he had fabricated the story. (149)

In investigating Oswald after the assassination, the Secret Service
learned that the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary

Page 141

Council (CRC), an anti-Castro organization, had occupied an office at
544 Camp Street for about 6 months during 1961-62.(150) At that
time, Sergio Arcacha Smith was the official CRC delegate for the
New Orleans area.(151) Since the CRC had vacated the building 15
months before Oswald arrived in New Orleans, the Warren Commission
concluded that there was no connection with Oswald.(152)
Nevertheless, the riddle of 544 Camp Street persisted over the years.

Oswald lost his job at the Reily Coffee Co. in July, and his efforts to
find another were futile.(153) Through the rest of the summer, he
filed claims at the unemployment office.

On August 5, Oswald initiated contact with Carlos Bringuier, a
delegate of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE).(155)
According to his testimony before the Warren Commission, Bringuier
was the only registered member of the group in New Orleans. (156)
Bringuier also said he had two friends at the time, Celso Hernandez
and Miguel Cruz, who were also active in the anti-Castro cause. (157)
Oswald reportedly told Bringuier that he wished to join the DRE,
offering money and assistance to train guerrillas.(158) Bringuier,
fearful of an infiltration attempt by Castro sympathizers or the FBI,
told Oswald to deal directly with DRE headquarters in Miami. (159)
The next day, Oswald returned to Bringuier's store and left a copy
of a Marine training manual with Rolando Pelaez, Bringuier's
brother-in-law. (160)

On August 9, Bringuier learned that a man was carrying a pro-Castro
sign and handing out literature on Canal Street. (161)
Carrying his own anti-Castro sign, Bringuier, along with Hernandez and
Cruz, set out to demonstrate against the pro-Castro sympathizer. (162)
Bringuier recognized Oswald and began shouting that he was a
traitor and a Communist.(163) A scuffle ensued, and police arrested
all participants.(164) Oswald spent the night in jail.(165) On August
12, he pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and was fined $10. (166)
The anti-Castro Cubans were not charged. (167)

During the incident with Bringuier, Oswald also encountered
Frank Bartes, the New Orleans delegate of the CRC from 1962-64.(168)
After Bringuier and Oswald were arrested in the street
scuffle, Bartes appeared in court with Bringuier. (169) According
Bartes, the news media surrounded Oswald for a statement after the
hearing. (170) Bartes then engaged in an argument with the media and
Oswald because the Cubans were not being given an opportunity to
present their anti-Castro views. (171)

On August 16, Oswald was again seen distributing pro-Castro
literature.(172) A friend of Bringuier, Carlos Quiroga, brought one
of Oswald's leaflets to Bringuier and volunteered to visit Oswald and
feign interest in the FPCC in order to determine Oswald's motives. (173)
Quiroga met with Oswald for about an hour.(174) He
learned that Oswald had a Russian wife and spoke Russian himself.
Oswald gave Quiroga an application for membership in the FPCC
chapter, but Quiroga noted he did not seem intent on actually enlisting
members. (175)

Oswald's campaign received newspaper, television, and radio coverage. (176)
William Stuckey, a reporter for radio station WDSU who
had been following the FPCC, interviewed Oswald on August 17 and

Page 142

proposed a television debate between Oswald and Bringuier, to be held
on August 21. (177) Bringuier issued a press release immediately after
the debate, urging the citizens of New Orleans to write their Congressmen
demanding a congressional investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald.(178)

Oswald largely passed out of sight from August 21 until September 17,
the day he applied for a tourist card to Mexico.(179) He is
known to have written letters to left-wing political organizations, and
he and Marina visited the Murrets on Labor Day. (180) Marina said
her husband spent his free time reading books and practicing with his
rifle. (181)

(2) Oswald in Clinton, La.--While reports of some Oswald contacts
with anti-Castro Cubans were known at the time of the 1964 investigation,
allegations of additional Cuba-related associations surfaced in
subsequent years. As an example, Oswald reportedly appeared in
August-September 1963 in Clinton, La., where a voting rights demonstration
was in progress. The reports of Oswald in Clinton were not, as
far as the committee could determine, available to the Warren Commission,
although one witness said he notified the FBI when he recognized
Oswald from news photographs right after the assassination.25(182)
In fact, the Clinton sightings did not publicly surface
until 1967, when they were introduced as evidence in the assassination
investigation being conducted by New Orleans District Attorney Jim
Garrison.(184) In that investigation, one suspect, David W. Ferrie,
a staunch anti-Castro partisan, died within days of having been named
by Garrison; the other, Clay L. Shaw, was acquitted in 1969.(185)
Aware that Garrison had been fairly criticized for questionable tactics,
the committee proceeded cautiously, making sure to determine on its
own the credibility of information coming from his probe. The committee
found that the Clinton witnesses were credible and significant.
They each were interviewed or deposed, or appeared before the committee
in executive session. While there were points that could be raised
to call into question their credibility, it was the judgment of the committee
that they were telling the truth as they knew it.

There were six Clinton witnesses, among them a State representative,
a deputy sheriff and a registrar of voters. (186) By synthesizing the
testimony of all of them, since they each contributed to the overall
account, the committee was able to piece together the following
sequence of events.

Clinton, La. about 130 miles from New Orleans, is the county seat
of East Feliciana Parish. In the late summer of 1963 it was targeted by
the Congress of Racial Equality for a voting rights campaign. (187)
Oswald first showed up in nearby Jackson, La., seeking employment at
East Louisiana State Hospital, a mental institution. (188) Apparently
on advice that his job would depend on his becoming a registered voter,
Oswald went to Clinton for that purpose (although the committee
could find no record that he was successful. (189)

In addition to the physical descriptions they gave that matched
that of Oswald, other observations of the witnesses tended to substanti-

25Reeves Morgan, a member of the Louisiana Legislature,
testified he was called back by the FBI a few days later and asked what Oswald had been wearing.
He said he was not contacted again. The FBI had not record of Morgan's call. (183)

Page 143

ate their belief that he was, in fact, the man they saw. For example,
he referred to himself as "Oswald," and he produced his Marine Corps
discharge papers as identification.(190) Some of the witnesses said
that Oswald was accompanied by two older men whom they identified
as Ferrie and Shaw. (191) If the witnesses were not only truthful but
accurate as well in their accounts, they established an association of an
undetermined nature between Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald less than 3
months before the assassination.

(3) David Ferrie.--The Clinton witnesses were not the only ones
who linked Oswald to Ferrie. On November 23, the day after the assassination,
Jack S. Martin, a part-time private detective and police informant,
told the office of the New Orleans District Attorney that a
former Eastern Airlines pilot named David Ferrie might have aided
Oswald in the assassination. (192) Martin had known Ferrie for over
2 years, beginning when he and Ferrie had performed some investigative
work on a case involving an illegitimate religious order in Louisville,
Ky. (193) Martin advised Assistant New Orleans District Attorney
Herman Kohlman that he suspected Ferrie might have known
Oswald for some time and that Ferrie might have once been Oswald's
superior officer in a New Orleans unit of the Civil Air Patrol.(194)
Martin made further allegations to the FBI on November 25.(195)
He indicated he thought he once saw a photograph of Oswald and
other CAP members when he visited Ferrie's home and that Ferrie
might have assisted Oswald in purchasing a foreign firearm.(196)
Martin also informed the FBI that Ferrie had a history of arrests and
that Ferrie was an amateur hypnotist, possibly capable of hypnotizing
Oswald. (197)

The committee reviewed Ferrie's background. He had been fired
by Eastern Airlines,(198) and in litigation over the dismissal, which
continued through August 1963, he was counseled by a New Orleans
attorney named G. Wray Gill. (199) Ferrie later stated that in March
1960, he and Gill made an agreement whereby Gill would represent
Ferrie in his dismissal dispute in return for Ferrie's work as an investigator
on other cases. (200) One of these cases involved deportation
proceedings against Carlos Marcello, the head of the organized crime
network in Louisiana and a client of Gill.26(201) Ferrie also
said he had entered into a similar agreement with Guy Banister, a former
FBI agent (Special Agent-in-Charge in Chicago) who had opened
a private detective agency in New Orleans. (203)

(4) 544 Camp Street.--Banister's firm occupied an office in 1963 in
the Newman Building at 531 Lafayette Street. (204) Another entrance
to the building was at 544 Camp Street, the address Oswald had
stamped on his Fair Play for Cuba Committee handouts. (205) During
the summer of 1963, Ferrie frequented 544 Camp Street regularly as a
result of his working relationship with Banister. (206)

Another occupant of the Newman Building, was the Cuban Revolutionary
Council, whose chief New Orleans delegate until 1962 was Ser-

26The committee learned that Ferrie's associations with
Marcello might have begun earlier. An unconfirmed U.S. border Patrol report indicated that
in February 1962, Ferrie piloted an airplane that returned Marcello to the United States
following his ouster from the country by Federal agents in April 1961, as part of the Kennedy administration's
crackdown on organized crime. Marcello denied to the committee in executive session that
Ferrie flew him out of Latin America, saying that he flew commercial airlines. Records do not
exist that can confirm or refute this contention. (202)

Page 144

gio Arcacha Smith. (207) He was replaced by Luis Rabel who, in turn,
was succeeded by Frank Bartes.(208) The committee interviewed or
deposed all three CRC New Orleans delegates. (209) Arcacha said he
never encountered Oswald and that he left New Orleans when he was
relieved of his CRC position in early 1962. (210) Rabel said he held the
post from January to October 1962, but that he likewise never knew
or saw Oswald and that the only time he went to the Newman Building
was to remove some office materials that Arcacha had left there. (211)
Bartes said the only time he was in contact with Oswald was
in their courtroom confrontation, that he ran the CRC chapter from
an office in his home and that he never visited an office at either 544
Camp Street or 531 Lafayette Street. (212)

The committee, on the other hand, developed information that, in
1961, Banister, Ferrie, and Arcacha were working together in the anti-Castro
cause. Banister, a fervent anti-Communist, was helping to
establish Friends of Democratic Cuba as an adjunct to the New Orleans
CRC chapter run by Arcacha in an office in the Newman Building. (213)
Banister was also conducting background investigations of
CRC members for Arcacha.(214) Ferrie, also strongly anti-Communist
and anti-Castro, was associated with Arcacha (and probably Banister)
in anti-Castro activism. (215)

On November 22, 1963, Ferrie had been in a Federal courtroom in
New Orleans in connection with legal proceedings against Carlos
Marcello.27(216) That night he drove, with two young friends, to
Houston, Tex. then to Galveston on Saturday, November 23, and back
to New Orleans on Sunday. (218) Before reaching New Orleans, he
learned from a telephone conversation with G. Wray Gill that Martin
had implicated him in the, assassination.(219) Gill also told Ferrie
about the rumors that he and Oswald had served together in the CAP
and that Oswald supposedly had Ferrie's library card in his possession
when he was arrested in Dallas.(220) When he got to his residence,
Ferrie did not go in, but sent in his place one of his companions on
the trip, Alvin Beauboeuf.(221) Beauboeuf and Ferrie's roommate,
Layton Martens, were detained by officers from the district attorney's
office. (222) Ferrie drove to Hammond, La, and spent the night
with a friend. (223)

On Monday, November 25, Ferrie turned himself in to the district
attorney's office where he was arrested on suspicion of being involved
in the assassination. (224) In subsequent interviews with New Orleans
authorities, the FBI and the Secret Service, Ferrie denied ever having
known Oswald or having ever been involved in the assassination. (225)
He stated that in the days preceding, November 22, he had been
working intensively for Gill on the Marcello case. (226) Ferrie said he
was in New Orleans on the morning of November 22, at which time
Marcello was acquitted in Federal court of citizenship falsification.
(227) He stated that he took the weekend trip to Texas for relaxation.(228)
Ferrie acknowledged knowing Jack Martin, stating that
Martin resented him for forcibly removing him from Gill's office
earlier that year. (229)

27With Ferrie's employer G. Wray Gill as his counsel, Marcello
was successfully resisting any attempt by the Government to have him legally deported or convicted of
a crime. (217)

Page 145

The FBI and Secret Service investigation into the possibility that
Ferrie and Oswald head been associated ended a few days later.(230)
A Secret Service report concluded that the information provided by
Jack Martin that Ferrie had been associated with Oswald and had
trained him to fire, a rifle was "without foundation." (231) The Secret
Service report went on to state that on November 26, 1963, the FBI
had informed the Secret Service that Martin had admitted that his
information was a "figment of his imagination." 28(232) The
investigation of Ferrie was subsequently closed for lack of evidence against
him.(234)

(5) A committee analysis of Oswald in New Orleans.---The Warren
Commission had attempted to reconstruct a daily chronology of Oswald's activities in New Orleans during the summer of 1963, and
the committee used it, as well as information arising from critics and the
Garrison investigation, to select events and contacts that merited closer
analysis. Among these were Oswald's confrontation with Carlos Bringuier
and with Frank Bartes, his reported activities in Clinton, La.,
and his ties, if any, to Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha
Smith and others who frequented the office building at 544 Camp Street.
The committee deposed Carlos Bringuier and interviewed or deposed
several of his associates. (235) It concluded that there had been
no relationship between Oswald and Bringuier and the DRE with the
exception of the confrontation over Oswald's distribution of pro-Castro
literature. The committee was not able to determine why Oswald approached
the anti-Castro Cubans, but it tended to concur with
Bringuier and others in their belief that Oswald was seeking to infiltrate
their ranks and obtain information about their activities.

As noted, the committee believed the Clinton witnesses to be telling
the truth as they knew it. It was, therefore, inclined to believe that
Oswald was in Clinton, La., in late August, early September 1963,
and that he was in the company of David Ferrie, if not Clay Shaw.
The committee was puzzled by Oswald's apparent association with
Ferrie, a person whose anti-Castro sentiments were so distant from
those of Oswald, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee campaigner. But
the relationship with Ferrie may have been significant for more than
its anti-Castro aspect, in light of Ferrie's connection with G. Wray
Gill and Carlos Marcello.

The committee also found that there was at least possibility that
Oswald and Guy Banister were acquainted. The following facts were
considered:

The 544 Camp Street address stamped on Oswald's FPCC
handouts was that of the building where Banister had his office;
Ross Banister told the committee that his brother had seen
Oswald handing out FPCC literature during the summer of 1963; (236) and
Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, told the committee she
saw Oswald in Banister's office on several occasions, the first being

28It appeared to the committee that the FBI overstated Martin's
recantation in its information to the Secret Service. Martin had cautioned the FBI that he had
no evidence to support his suspicions but that he believed they merited investigation. (233)

Page 146

when he was interviewed for a job during the summer of 1963.29(237)

The committee learned that Banister left extensive files when he
died in 1964.(238) Later that year, they were purchased by the
Louisiana State Police from Banister's widow.(239) According to
Joseph Cambre of the State police, Oswald's name was not the subject
of any file, but it was included in a file for the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee.(240) Cambre said the FPCC file contained newspaper
clippings and a transcript, of a radio program on which Oswald had
appeared. (241) The committee was not able to review Banister's files,
since they had been destroyed pursuant to an order of the superintendent of
Louisiana State Police that all files not part of the public record
or pertinent to ongoing criminal investigations be burned. (242)

Additional evidence that Oswald may have been associated or acquainted
with Ferrie and Banister was provided by the testimony of
Adrian Alba, proprietor of the Crescent City Garage which was next
door to the Reily Coffee Co. where Oswald had worked for a couple
of months in 1963. (The garage and the coffee company were both
located less than a block from 544 Camp Street.) Although Alba's
testimony on some points was questionable, he undoubtedly did know
Oswald who frequently visited his garage, and the committee found
no reason to question his statement that he had often seen Oswald in
Mancuso's Restaurant on the first floor of 544 Camp. (243) Ferrie and
Banister also were frequent customers at Mancuso's. (244)

(6) Summary of the evidence.--In sum, the committee did not
believe that an anti-Castro organization was involved in a conspiracy
to assassinate President Kennedy. Even though the committee's investigation
did reveal that in 1964 the FBI failed to pursue intelligence reports
of possible anti-Castro involvement as vigorously as it
might have, the committee found it significant that it discovered no
information in U.S. intelligence agency files that would implicate
anti-Castroites. Contact between the intelligence community and the
anti-Castro movement was close, so it is logical to suppose that some
trace of group involvement would have been detected had it existed.

The committee also thought it significant that it received no information
from the Cuban Government that would implicate anti-Castroites. The
Cubans had dependable information sources in the exile communities
in Miami, New Orleans, Dallas and other U.S. cities, so there
is high probability that Cuban intelligence would have been aware
of any group involvement by the exiles. Following the assassination,
the Cuban Government would have had the highest incentive to report
participation by anti-Castroites, had it existed to its knowledge, since
it would have dispelled suspicions of pro-Castro Cuban involvement.

The committee was impressed with the cooperation it received from the
Cuban Government, and while it acknowledged this cooperation might
not have been forthcoming in 1964, it concluded that, had such information
existed in 1978, it would have been supplied by Cuban officials.

On the other hand, the committee noted that it was unable to preclude
from its investigation the possibility that individuals with anti-

29The committee did not credit the Roberts' testimony
standing alone. It came late in the investigation and without corroboration or independent substantiation, and much of Roberts'
other testimony lacked credibility.

Page 147

Castro leanings might have been involved in the assassination. The
committee candidly acknowledged, for example that it could not explain
Oswald's associations--nor at this late date fully determine their
extent--with anti-Castro Cubans. The committee remained convinced
that since Oswald consistently demonstrated a left-wing Marxist
ideology, he would not have supported the anti-Castro movement. At
the same time, the committee noted that Oswald's possible association
with Ferrie might be distinguishable, since it could not be simply
termed an anti-Castro association. Ferrie and Oswald may have had a
personal friendship unrelated to Cuban activities. Ferrie was not
Cuban, and though he actively supported the anti-Castro cause, he had
other interests. For one, he was employed by Carlos Marcello as an
investigator. (245) (It has been alleged that Ferrie operated a service
station in 1964 the franchise for which was reportedly paid by Marcello.) (246)
The committee concluded, therefore, that Oswald's most
significant apparent anti-Castro association, that with David Ferrie,
might in fact not have been related to the Cuban issue.

In the end, the committee concluded that the evidence was sufficient
to support the conclusion that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups,
were not involved in the assassination, but it could not preclude the
possibility that individual members may have been involved.

4.THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE
BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT THE NATIONAL SYNDICATE OF ORGANIZED CRIME AS
A GROUP, WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY, BUT
THAT THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE DOES NOT PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY THAT INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED

Lee Harvey Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby at 11:21 a.m on
Sunday, November 24, 1963, less than 48 hours after President Kennedy
was assassinated. While many Americans were prepared to believe
that Oswald had acted alone in shooting the President, they found
their credulity strained when they were asked to accept a conclusion
that Ruby, too, had not acted as part of a plot. As the Warren Commission observed,

...almost immediately speculation arose that Ruby had
acted on behalf of members of a conspiracy who had planned
the killing of President Kennedy and wanted to silence
Oswald. (1).

The implications of the murder of Oswald are crucial to an understanding
of the assassination itself. Several of the logical possibilities
should be made explicit:

Oswald was a member of a conspiracy, and he was killed by
Ruby, also a conspirator, so that he would not reveal the plot.
Oswald was a member of a conspiracy, yet Ruby acted alone,
as he explained, for personal reasons.
Oswald was not a member of a conspiracy as far as Ruby knew,
but his murder was an act planned by Ruby and others to take
justice into their own hands.

Page 148

Both Oswald and Ruby acted alone or with the assistance of
only one or two confederates, but there was no wider conspiracy,
one that extended beyond the immediate participants.

If it is determined that Ruby acted alone, it does not necessarily
follow that there was no conspiracy to murder the President. But if
Ruby was part of a sophisticated plot to murder Oswald, there would
be troublesome implications with respect to the assassination of the
President. While it is possible to develop an acceptable rationale of
why a group might want to kill the President's accused assassin, even
though its members were not in fact involved in the assassination, it
is difficult to make the explanation sound convincing. There is a possibility,
for example, that a Dallas citizen or groups of citizens planned
the murder of Oswald by Ruby to revenge the murders of President
Kennedy or Patrolman J.D. Tippit, or both. Nevertheless, the brief
period of time between the two murders, during which the vengeful
plotters would have had to formulate and execute Oswald's murder,
would seem to indicate the improbability of such an explanation. A
preexisting group might have taken action within 48 hours, but it
is doubtful that a group could have planned and then carried out
Oswald's murder in such a short period of time.

(a) The Warren Commission investigation

The Warren Commission looked at Ruby's conduct and associations
from November 21 through November 24 to determine if they reflected
a conspiratorial relationship with Oswald.(2) It found no "...
grounds for believing that Ruby's killing of Oswald was part of a
conspiracy."(3) It accepted as true his explanation that his conduct
reflected "genuine shock and grief" and strong affection for President
Kennedy and his family. (4) As for numerous phone contacts Ruby
had with underworld figures in the weeks preceding the assassination,
the Commission believed his explanation that they had to do with his
troubles with the American Guild of Variety Artists, rather than reflecting
any sinister associations that might have been related to the
President's assassination. (5)

The Commission also found no evidence that Ruby and Oswald had
ever been acquainted, although the Commission acknowledged that
they both lived in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, had post office boxes
at the terminal annex, and had possible but tenuous third party links.
These included Oswald's landlady, Earlene Roberts, whose sister,
Bertha Cheek, had visited Ruby at his nightclub on November 18, (6)
and a fellow boarder at Oswald's roominghouse, John Carter, who
was friendly with a close friend and employee of Ruby, Wanda
Killam.(7).

The Commission also looked to Ruby's ties to other individuals or
groups that might have obviated the need for direct contact with
Oswald near the time of the assassination. Ruby was found not to be
linked to pro- or anti-Castro Cuban groups;(8) he was also found
not to be linked to "illegal activities with members of the organized
underworld."(9) The Commission noted that Ruby "disclaimed that
he was associated with organized criminal activities," and it did not
find reason to disbelieve him. (10) The evidence "fell short" of demonstrating
that Ruby "was significantly affiliated with organized
crime."(11) He was, at worst, "familiar, if not friendly" with
some

Page 149

criminal elements, but he was not a participant in "organized criminal
activity." (12) Consequently, the Commission concluded that "the evidence
does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized
crime? (13) And in its central conclusion about Jack Ruby, the Commission
stated that its investigation had "yielded no evidence that
Ruby conspired with anyone in planning or executing the killing of
Lee Harvey Oswald."(14) For the Warren Commission, therefore,
Ruby's killing of Oswald had no implications for Oswald's killing of
the President.

(b) The committee investigation

Like the Warren Commission, the committee was deeply troubled by
the circumstances surrounding the murder of the President's accused
assassin. It, too, focused its attention on Jack Ruby, his family and
his associates. Its investigation, however, was not limited to Ruby,
Oswald and their immediate world. The committee's attention was
also directed to organized crime and those major figures in it who
might have been involved in a conspiracy to kill the President because
of the Kennedy administration's unprecedented crackdown on them
and their illicit activities.

(1) Ruby and organized crime.--The committee, as did the Warren
Commission, recognized that a primary reason to suspect organized
crime of possible involvement in the assassination was Ruby's killing
of Oswald. For this reason, the committee undertook an extensive
investigation of Ruby and his relatives, friends and associates to determine
if there was evidence that Ruby was involved in crime, organized
or otherwise, such as gambling and vice, and if such involvement
might have been related to the murder of Oswald.

The evidence available to the committee indicated that Ruby was
not a "member" of organized crime in Dallas or elsewhere, although
it showed that he had a significant number of associations and direct
and indirect contacts with underworld figures, a number of whom were
connected to the most powerful La Cosa Nostra leaders. Additionally,
Ruby had numerous associations with the Dallas criminal element.
The committee examined the circumstances of a well-known episode
in organized crime history in which representatives of the Chicago
Mafia attempted in, 1947, a move into Dallas, facilitated by the bribery
of members of the Dallas sheriff's office. (15) The Kefauver committee
of the U.S. Senate, during, its extensive probe of organized crime
in the early 1950's, termed this attempt by the Chicago syndicate to
buy protection from the Dallas authorities an extraordinary event, one
of the more brazen efforts made during that postwar period of criminal expansion.

In the years since the assassination, there had been allegations that
Ruby was involved in organized crime's 1947 attempt to move into
Dallas, perhaps as a frontman for the Chicago racketeers. (16) During
discussions of the bribe offer, Dallas Sheriff Steve Guthrie secretly
taped conversations in which the Chicago mob representative outlined
plans for its Dallas operation. (17) They spoke of establishing a nightclub
as a front for illegal gambling. It happens that Ruby moved from
Chicago to Dallas in 1947 and began operating a number of nightclubs. (18)
While the FBI and the Warren Commission were aware in
1964 of the alleged links between Ruby and those involved in the

Page 150

bribery attempt, a thorough investigation of the charges was not undertaken. (19)

The committee frankly realized that because this incident occurred
years in the past, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to answer
all the allegations fully and finally. Nevertheless, the committee was
able to develop substantial evidence from tape recordings made by the
sheriff's office, detailed law enforcement documents and the testimony
of knowledgeable witnesses.

As a result, the committee concluded that while Ruby and members
of his family were acquainted with individuals who were involved in
the incident, including Chicago gangsters who had moved to Dallas,
and while Ruby may have wished to participate, there was no solid evidence
that he was, in fact, part of the Chicago group. (20) There was
also no evidence available that Ruby was to have been involved in the
proposed gambling operation had the bribery attempt been successful,
or that Ruby came to Dallas for that purpose. (21)

The committee found it reasonable to assume that had Ruby been
involved in any significant way, he would probably have been referred
to in either the tape recordings or the documentation relating to the
incident, but a review of that available evidence failed to disclose any
reference to Ruby. (22) The committee, however, was not able to interview
former Sheriff Guthrie, the subject of the bribery attempt and
the one witness who maintained to the FBI in 1963-64 that Ruby was
significantly involved in the Chicago syndicate plan.1(23)

The committee also examined allegations that, even before the 1947
move to Dallas, Ruby had been personally acquainted with two professional
killers for the organized crime syndicate in Chicago, David
Yaras and Lenny Patrick. (25) The committee established that Ruby,
Yaras and Patrick were in fact acquainted during Ruby's years in
Chicago, particularly in the 1930's and 1940's.(26) Both Yaras and
Patrick admitted, when questioned by the FBI in 1964, that they did
know Ruby, but both said that they had not had any contact with him
for 10 to 15 years. (27) Yaras and Patrick further maintained they had
never been particularly close to Ruby, had never visited him in Dallas
and had no knowledge of Ruby being connected to organized crime. (28)
Indeed, the Warren Commission used Patrick's statement as a
footnote citation in its report to support its conclusion that Ruby
did not have significant syndicate associations. (29)

On the other hand, the committee established that Yaras and Patrick
were, in fact, notorious gunmen, having been identified by law enforcement
authorities as executioners for the Chicago mob(30) and
closely associated with Sam Giancana, the organized crime leader in
Chicago who was murdered in 1975. Yaras and Patrick are believed
to have been responsible for numerous syndicate executions, including
the murder of James Ragan, a gambling wire service owner. (31)
The evidence implicating Yaras and Patrick in syndicate activities is
unusually reliable.(32) Yaras, for example, was overheard in a
1969, electronic surveillance discussing various underworld murder con-

1With reference to Guthrie's claim that Ruby's name had been
mentioned frequently in the discussions with Chicago underworld representatives, the committee's
review of the tape recordings failed to disclose such references. Portions of the tapes
were unintelligible and two entire recordings were discovered by investigators in 1964
to be missing, so the evidence was not conclusive.

Page 151

tracts he had carried out and one he had only recently been assigned.
While the committee found no evidence that Ruby was associated with
Yaras or Patrick during the 50's or 1960's, (33) it concluded that
Ruby had probably talked by telephone to Patrick during the summer of 1963. (34)

While Ruby apparently did not participate in the organized crime
move to Dallas is 1947, he did establish himself as a Dallas nightclub
operator around that time. His first club was the Silver Spur, which
featured country and western entertainment. Then he operated the
Sovereign, a private club that failed and was converted into the Carousel
Club, a burlesque house with striptease acts. Ruby, an extroverted individual,
acquired numerous friends and contacts in and around Dallas, some of whom had syndicate ties.

Included among Ruby's closest friends was Lewis McWillie. McWillie
moved from Dallas to Cuba in 1958 and worked in gambling
casinos in Havana until 1960.(35) In 1978, McWillie was employed
in Las Vegas, and law enforcement files indicate he had business and
personal ties to major organized crime figures, including Meyer Lansky
and Santos Trafficante. (36)

Ruby traveled to Cuba on at least one occasion to visit McWillie. (37)
McWillie testified to the committee that Ruby visited him only
once in Cuba, and that it was a social visit.(38) The Warren Commission
concluded this was the only trip Ruby took to Cuba,(39) despite
documentation in the Commission's own files indicating Ruby
made a second trip.

Both Ruby and McWillie claimed that Ruby's visit to Cuba was at
McWillie's invitation and lasted about a week in the late summer or
early fall of 1959. (41) The committee, however, obtained tourist cards
from the Cuban Government that show Ruby entered Cuba on August
8, 1959, left on September 11, reentered on September 12 and left
again on September 13, 1959.(42) These documents supplement records
the committee obtained from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) indicating that Ruby left Cuba on September 11,
1959, traveling to Miami, returned to Cuba on September 12, and
traveled on to New Orleans on September 13, 1959.(43) The Cuban
Government could not state with certainty that the commercial airline
flights indicated by the INS records were the only ones Ruby
took during the period.(44)

Other records obtained by the committee indicate that Ruby was in
Dallas at times during the August 8 to September 11, 1959, period. (45)
He apparently visited his safe deposit box on August 21, met with FBI
Agent Charles W. Flynn on August 31,2 and returned to the safe
deposit box on September 4. (47) Consequently, if the tourist card documentation,
INS, FBI and bank records are all correct, Ruby had to
have made at least three trips to Cuba. While the records appeared
to be accurate, they were incomplete. The committee was unable to
determine, for example, whether on the third trip, if it occurred, Ruby

2In March 1959, Ruby told the FBI he wished to assist the Bureau by
supplying on a confidential basis criminal information that had come to his attention. Between
April and October 1959, Ruby met with Agent Flynn eight times and gave him a small bit of information about thefts and
related offenses. On November 6, 1959, Flynn wrote that Ruby's information had not been particularly helpful,
that further attempts to develop Ruby as a PCI (potential criminal informant) would be fruitless and that the
file on Ruby should be closed (46).

Page 152

traveled by commercial airline or some other means. Consequently,
the committee could not rule out the possibility that Ruby made more
trips during this period or at other times.

Based on the unusual nature of the l-day trip to Miami from
Havana on September 11-12 and the possibility of at least one additional
trip to Cuba, the committee concluded that vacationing was
probably not the purpose for traveling to Havana, despite Ruby's
insistence to the Warren Commission that his one trip to Cuba in
1959 was a social visit. (48) The committee reached the judgment that
Ruby most likely was serving as a courier for gambling interests when
he traveled to Miami from Havana for 1 day, then returned to Cuba
for a day, before flying to New Orleans.(49) This judgement is supported
by the following:

McWillie had made previous trips to Miami on behalf of the
owners of the Tropicana, the casino for which he worked, to
deposit funds; (50)
McWillie placed a call to Meyer Panitz, a gambling associate
in Miami, to inform him that Ruby was coming from Cuba, resulting
in two meetings between Panitz and Ruby; (51)
There was a continuing need for Havana casino operators to
send their assets out of Cuba to protect them from seizure by the
Castro government; (52) and
The 1-day trip from Havana to Miami was not explained by
Ruby, and his testimony to the Warren Commission about his
travels to Cuba was contradictory.(53)

The committee also deemed it likely that Ruby at least met various
organized crime figures in Cuba, possibly including some who had
been detained by the Cuban government. (54) In fact, Ruby told the
Warren Commission that he was later visited in Dallas by McWillie
and a Havana casino owner and that they had discussed the gambling
business in Cuba. 3(55)

As noted by the Warren Commission, an exporter named Robert
McKeown alleged that Ruby offered in 1959 to purchase a letter of
introduction to Fidel Castro in hopes of securing the release of three
individuals being held in a Cuban prison. (57) McKeown also claimed
Ruby contacted him about a sale of jeeps to Cuba. 4(58) If McKeown's
allegations were accurate, they would support a judgment that Ruby's
travels to Cuba were not merely for a vacation. (The committee was
unable to confirm or refute McKeown's allegations. In his appearance
before the committee in executive session, however, McKeown's story
did not seem to be credible, based on the committee's assessment of
his demeanor.(61)

It has been charged that Ruby met with Santos Trafficante in Cuba
sometime in 1959.(62) Trafficante, regarded as one of the Nation's
most powerful organized crime figures, was to become a key participant
in Castro assassination attempts by the Mafia and the CIA from
1960 to 1963.(63) The committee developed circumstantial evidence

3Earlier, though both he and McWillie denied it, Ruby
apparently sent a coded message to McWillie in Havana, containing various sets of numerals, a
communication Ruby transmitted to McWillie via McWillie's girlfriend (56).

4Ruby denied this to the Warren Commission, stating he did
not have sufficient contacts to obtain jeeps at the time. (59) The Warren Commission noted
that Ruby "made preliminary inquiries, as a middleman" in regard to the possible sale
of jeeps in Cuba, but stated that he "was merely pursuing a moneymaking opportunity."(60)

Page 153

that makes a meeting between Ruby and Trafficante a distinct possibility,(64)
but the evidence was not sufficient to form a final conclusion as to whether or not such
a meeting took place.

While allegations of a Ruby link to Trafficante had previously been
raised, mainly due to McWillie's alleged close connections to the Mafia
leader, it was not until recent years that they received serious attention.
Trafficante had long been recognized by law enforcement officials
as a leading member of the La Cosa Nostra, but he did not become
the object of significant public attention in connection with the assassination
of the President until his participation in the assassination
plots against Castro was disclosed in 1975.

In 1976, in response to a freedom of information suit, the CIA declassified
a State Department cablegram received from London on November 28, 1963. It read:

On 26 November 1963, a British Journalist named John
Wilson, and also known as Wilson-Hudson, gave information
to the American Embassy in London which indicated that
an "American gangster-type named Ruby" visited Cuba
around 1959. Wilson himself was working in Cuba at that
time and was jailed by Castro before he was deported.
In prison in Cuba, Wilson says he met an American gangster-gambler
named Santos who could not return to the
U.S.A. ...Instead he preferred to live in relative luxury
in a Cuban prison. While Santos was in prison, Wilson says,
Santos was visited frequently by an American gangster type
named Ruby. (65)

Several days after the CIA had received the information, the Agency
noted that there were reports that Wilson-Hudson was a "psychopath"
and unreliable. The Agency did not conduct an investigation of the
information, and the Warren Commission was apparently not informed
of the cablegram. The former staff counsel who directed the
Commission's somewhat limited investigation of organized crime told
the committee that since the Commission was never told of the CIA's
use of the Mafia to try to assassinate Castro from 1960 to 1963, he was
not familiar with the name Santos Trafficante in 1964. (66)

The committee was unable to locate John Wilson-Hudson (According
to reports, he had died.) Nor was the committee able to obtain independent
confirmation of the Wilson-Hudson allegation. The committee
was able, however, to develop corroborative information to the effect
that Wilson-Hudson was incarcerated at the same detention camp in
Cuba as Trafficante. (67)

On June 6, 1959, Trafficante and others who controlled extensive
gambling interests in Cuba were detained as part of a Castro government
policy that would subsequently lead to the confiscation of all
underworld holding in Cuba.(68) They were held in Trescornia, a
minimum security detention camp. (69) According to documentation
supplied by the Cuban Government, Trafficante was released from
Trescornia on August 18, 1959. (70) Tourist card documentation,
also obtained by the committee, as well as various Warren Commission
documents, indicate Ruby's first trip to Cuba began on August 1959.(71)
Thus, Ruby was in Cuba during part of the final days of
Trafficante's detention at Trescornia.(72)

Page 154

McWillie testified before the committee that he had visited another
detainee at Trescornia during that period, and he recalled possibly
seeing Trafficante there. McWillie claimed, however, he did not say
more than "hello" to him. (73) McWillie further testified it was during
that period that Ruby visited him in Havana for about a week, and
that Ruby tagged along with him during much of his stay. (74) McWillie
told the committee that Ruby could have gone with him to visit
Trescornia, although he doubted that Ruby did so.(75) McWillie
testified that he could not clearly recall much about Ruby's visit. (76)

Jose Verdacia Verdacia, a witness made available for a committee
interview by the Cuban Government, was the warden at Trescornia
in August 1959.(77) Verdacia told the committee that he could not
recall the name John Wilson-Hudson, but he could remember a British
journalist who had worked in Argentina, as had Wilson-Hudson, who
was detained at Trescornia. (78)

In his own public testimony before the committee, Trafficante testified
that he did not remember Ruby ever having visited him at Trescornia.
Trafficante stated,

There was no reason for this man to visit me. I have never
seen this man before. I have never been to Dallas, I never had
no contact with him. I don't see why he was going to come and visit me. (79)

Trafficante did, however, testify that he could recall an individual
fitting British journalist John Wilson-Hudson's description, and he
stated that the man was among those who were held in his section at
Trescornia. (80)

The importance of a Ruby-Trafficante meeting in Trescornia should
not be overemphasized. The most it would show would be a meeting, at
that a brief one. No one has suggested that President Kennedy's assassination
was planned at Trescornia in 1959. At the same time, a
meeting or an association, even minor, between Ruby and Trafficante
would not have been necessary for Ruby to have been used by Trafficante
to murder Oswald. (81) Indeed, it is likely that such a direct contact
would have been avoided by Trafficante if there had been a plan
to execute either the President or the President's assassin, but, since
no such plot could have been under consideration in 1959, there would
not have been a particular necessity for Trafficante-to avoid contact
with Ruby in Cuba.

The committee investigated other aspects of Ruby's activities that
might have shown an association with organized crime figures. An
extensive computer analysis of his telephone toll records for the month
prior to the President's assassination revealed that he either placed
calls to or received calls from a number of individuals who may be
fairly characterized as having been affiliated, directly or indirectly,
with organized crime. (82) These included Irwin Weiner a Chicago
bondsman well know as a frontman for organized crime and the
Teamsters Union;(83) Robert "Barney" Baker, a lieutenant of James
R. Hoffa and associate of several convicted organized crime executioners:(84)
Nofio J. Pecora, a lieutenant of Carlos Marcello, the
Mafia boss in Louisiana (85) Harold Tannenbaum, a New Orleans
French Quarter nightclub manager who lived in a trailer park owned

Page 155

by Pecora;(86) McWillie, the Havana gambler;(87) and Murray
"Dusty" Miller, a Teamster deputy of Hoffa and associate of various
underworld figures.(88) Additionally, the committee concluded that
Ruby was also probably in telephonic contact with Mafia executioner
Lenny Patrick sometime during the summer of 1963. (89) Although no
such call was indicated in the available Ruby telephone records, Ruby's
sister, Eva Grant, told the Warren Commission that Ruby had spoken
more than once of having contacted Patrick by telephone during that
period. (90)

The committee found that the evidence surrounding the calls was
generally consistent--at least to the times of their occurrence--with
the explanation that they were for the purpose of seeking assistance in
a labor dispute. (91) Ruby, as the operator of two nightclubs, the Carousel
and the Vegas, had to deal with the American Guild of Variety
Artists (AGVA), an entertainers union.(92) Ruby did in fact have
a history of labor problems involving his striptease performers, and
there was an ongoing dispute in the early 1960's regarding amateur
performers in Dallas area nightclubs.(93) Testimony to the committee
supported the conclusion that Ruby's phone calls were, by and
large, related to his labor troubles. (94) In light of the identity of
some of the individuals, however, the possibility of other matters being
discussed could not be dismissed.(95)

In particular, the committee was not satisfied with the explanations
of three individuals closely associated with organized crime who received
telephone calls from Ruby in October or November 1963. (96)

Weiner, the Chicago bondsman, refused to discuss his call from
Ruby on October 26, 1963, with the FBI in 1964,(97) and he told a
reporter in 1978 that the call had nothing to do with labor problems.(98)
In his executive session testimony before the committee,
however, Weiner stated that he had lied to the reporter, and he
claimed that he and Ruby had, in fact discussed a labor dispute. (99)
The committee was not satisfied with Weiner's explanation of his
relationship with Ruby. Weiner suggested Ruby was seeking a bond
necessary to obtain an injunction in his labor troubles, yet the committee
could find no other creditable indication that Ruby contemplated
seeking court relief, nor any other explanation for his having
to go to Chicago for such a bond. (100)

Barney Baker told the FBI in 1964 that he had received only one
telephone call from Ruby (on Nov. 7, 1963) during which he had
curtly dismissed Ruby's plea for assistance in a nightclub labor dispute.(101)
The committee established, however, that Baker received
a second lengthy call from Ruby on November 8.(102) The committee
found it hard to believe that Baker, who denied the conversation ever took place,
could have forgotten it. (103)

The committee was also dissatisfied with the explanation of a call
Ruby made on October 30, 1963, to the New Orleans trailer park
office of Nofio J. Pecora, the long-time Marcello lieutenant.(104)
Pecora told the committee that only he would have answered his
phone and that he never spoke with Ruby or took a message from
him.(105) The committee considered the possibility that the call was
actually for Harold Tannenbaum, a mutual friend of Ruby and

Page 156

Pecora who lived in the trailer park, although Pecora denied he
would have relayed such a message. (106)

Additionally, the committee found it difficult to dismiss certain
Ruby associations with the explanation that they were solely related
to his labor problems. For example, James Henry Dolan, a Dallas
AGVA representative, was reportedly an acquaintance of both Carlos
Marcello and Santos Trafficante.(107) While Dolan worked with
Ruby on labor matters, they were also allegedly associated in other
dealings, including a strong-arm attempt to appropriate the proceeds
of a one-night performance of a stage review at the Adolphus Hotel
in Dallas called "Bottoms Up." (108) The FBI, moreover, has identified
Dolan as an associate of Nofio Pecora. (109) The committee noted
further that reported links between AGVA and organized crime
figures have been the subject of Federal and State investigations that
have been underway for years.5(110) The committee's difficulties in
separating Ruby's AGVA contacts from his organized crime connections was,
in large degree, based on the dual roles that many of his
associates played. 6

In assessing the significance of these Ruby contacts, the committee
noted, first of all, that they should have been more thoroughly explored
in 1964 when memories were clearer and related records (including,
but not limited to, additional telephone toll records) were
available. Further, while there may be persuasive arguments against
the likelihood that the attack on Oswald would have been planned in
advance on the telephone with an individual like Ruby, the pattern
of contacts did show that individuals who had the motive to kill the
President also had knowledge of a man who could be used to get
access to Oswald in the custody of the Dallas police. In Ruby, they
also had knowledge of a man who had exhibited a violent nature
and who was in serious financial trouble. The calls, in short, established
knowledge and possible availability, if not actual planning.

(2) Ruby and the Dallas Police Department. The committee also
investigated the relationship between Ruby and the Dallas Police
Department to determine whether members of the department might
have helped Ruby get access to Oswald for the purpose of shooting
him.(111) Ruby had a friendly and somewhat unusual relationship
with the Dallas Police Department, both collectively and with individual
officers, but the committee found little evidence of any significant
influence by Ruby within the force that permitted him to
engage in illicit activities.(112) Nevertheless, Ruby's close relationship
with one or more members of the police force may have been a
factor in his entry to the police basement on November 24, 1963. (113)

Both the Warren Commission and a Dallas Police Department investigative
unit concluded that Ruby entered the police basement on
November 24, 1963, between 11:17 a.m., when he apparently sent a
telegram, and 11:21, when he shot Oswald, via the building's Main
Street ramp as a police vehicle was exiting, thereby fortuitously

5According to FBI records, AGVA has been used frequently by
members of organized crime as a front for criminal activities.

6Although it was dissatisfied with the explanations it received for these
calls, the committee also noted that the individuals called may have been reluctant to admit that
Ruby was seeking their assistance in an illegal effort to settle his labor problems.

Page 157

creating a momentary distraction.(114) The committee, however,
found that Ruby probably did not come down the ramp,(115) and
that his most likely route was an alleyway located next to the Dallas
Municipal Building and a stairway leading to the basement garage
of police headquarters. (116)

The conclusion reached by the Warren Commission that Ruby
entered the police basement via the ramp was refuted by the eyewitness
testimony of every witness in the relevant area only Ruby himself
excepted. (117) It was also difficult for the committee to reconcile the
ramp route with the 55-second interval (derived from viewings of the
video tapes of the Oswald murder) from the moment the police vehicle
started up the ramp and the moment Ruby shot Oswald. (118) Ruby
would have had to come down the ramp after the vehicle went up, leaving
him less than 55 seconds to get down the ramp and kill Oswald.

Even though the Warren Commission and the Dallas police investigative
unit were aware of substantial testimony contradicting the ramp
theory, (119) they arrived at their respective conclusions by relying
heavily on Ruby's own assertions and what they perceived to be the
absence of a plausible alternative route. (120)

The committee's conclusion that Ruby entered from the alley was
supported by the fact that it was much less conspicuous than the
alternatives,(121) by the lack of security in the garage area and along
the entire route,(122) and by the testimony concerning the security
of the doors along the alley and stairway route. (123) This route would
also have accommodated the 4-minute interval from Ruby's departure
from a Western Union office near police headquarters at 11:17 a.m.
to the moment of the shooting at 11:21.(124)

Based on a review of the evidence, albeit circumstantial, the committee
believed that Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous
act, in that it involved at least some premeditation.(125)
Similarly, the Committee believed that it was less likely that Ruby entered
the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may
have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions. The
assistance may have been in the form of information about plans for
Oswald's transfer or aid in entering the building or both.7(126)

The committee found several circumstances significant in its evaluation
of Ruby's conduct. It considered in particular the selectively
recalled and self-serving statements in Ruby's narration of the
events of the entire November 22-24 weekend in arriving at its
conclusions. (127) It also considered certain conditions and events. The
committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway
route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage
nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting;(128) by a Saturday
night telephone call from Ruby to his closest friend, Ralph Paul, in
which Paul responded to something Ruby said by asking him if he
was crazy;(129) and by the actions and statements of several Dallas
police officers, particularly those present when Ruby was initially
interrogated about the shooting of Oswald. (130)

7While the Warren Commission did not make reference to it in
its report, Ruby refused in his first interviews with the FBI, Secret Service and the Dallas police
to indicate how he entered the basement or whether anyone had assisted him. In later interviews, Ruby state he had walked
down the ramp.

Page 158

There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld
relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's
entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.(131) For example, the
fact that a polygraph test had been given to Sergeant Patrick Dean
in 1964 was never revealed to the Commission, even though Dean was
responsible for basement security and was the first person to whom
Ruby explained how he had entered the basement.(132) Dean indicated
to the committee that he had "failed" the test, but the committee
was unable to locate a copy of the actual questions, responses and
results. (133)

(3) Other evidence relating to Ruby.---The committee noted that
other Ruby activities and movements during the period immediately
following the assassination--on November 22 and 23--raised disturbing questions.
For example, Ruby's first encounter with Oswald occurred over 36 hours
before he shot him. Ruby was standing within a
few feet of Oswald as he was being moved from one part of police
headquarters to another just before midnight on November 22.(134)
Ruby testified that he had no trouble entering the building, and the
committee found no evidence contradicting his story. The committee
was disturbed, however, by Ruby's easy access to headquarters and by
his inconsistent accounts of his carrying a pistol. In an FBI interview
on December 25, 1963, he said he had the pistol during the encounter
with Oswald late in the evening of November 22. But when questioned
about it by the Warren Commission, Ruby replied, "I will be honest
with you. I lied about it. It isn't so, I didn't have a gun." (135) Finally,
the committee was troubled by reported sightings of Ruby on Saturday,
November 23, at Dallas police headquarters and at the county
jail at a time when Oswald's transfer to the county facility had originally
been scheduled. These sightings, along with the one on Friday night,
could indicate that Ruby was pursuing Oswald's movements
throughout the weekend.

The committee also questioned Ruby's self-professed motive for
killing Oswald, his story to the Warren Commission and other authorities
that he did it out of sorrow over the assassination and sympathy
for the President's widow and children. Ruby consistently
claimed there had been no other motive and that no one had influenced
his act. (136) A handwritten note by Ruby, disclosed in 1967, however,
exposed Ruby's explanation for the Oswald slaying as a fabricated
legal ploy. (137) Addressed to his attorney, Joseph Tonahill, it told of
advice Ruby had received from his first lawyer. Tom Howard, in 1963:
"Joe, you should know this. Tom Howard told me to say that I shot
Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to
Dallas to testify. OK?" (138)

The committee examined a report that Ruby was at Parkland Hospital
shortly after the fatally wounded President had been brought
there on November 22, 1963. Seth Kantor, a newsman then employed
by Scripps-Howard who had known Ruby, later testified to the Warren
Commission that he had run into him at Parkland and spoken
with him briefly shortly before the President's death was announced. (139)
While the Warren Commission concluded that Kantor
was mistaken.(14O) the committee determined he probably was not.
The committee was impressed by the opinion of Burr W. Griffin, the

Page 159

Warren Commission counsel who directed the Ruby investigation and
wrote the Ruby section of the Warren report. Griffin told the committee he had come to
believe, in light of evidence subsequently brought
out, that the Commission conclusion about Kantor's testimony was wrong.(141)

Subsequent to Ruby's apprehension, he was given a polygraph
examination by the FBI in which he denied that he had been involved
with any other person in killing Oswald, or had been involved in any
way in the assassination of President Kennedy.(142) The Warren
Commission stated it did not rely on this examination in drawing
conclusions, although it did publish a transcript of the examination.(143)
The FBI in 1964 also expressed dissatisfaction with the test,(144) based
on the circumstances surrounding its administration. A panel of polygraph
experts reviewed the examination for the committee and concluded that it
was not validly conducted or interfered.(145) Because there
were numerous procedural errors made during the test, the committee's panel
was unable to interpret the examination.(146)

Finally, the committee analyzed the finances of Ruby and of his
family to determine if there was any evidence of financial profit from
his killing of the accused assassins.(147) It was an analysis the Warren
Commission could not perform so soon after the assassination. (148)
Some financial records, including tax returns, could not be
legally obtained by the committee without great difficulty, and others
no longer existed. (149) Nevertheless, on the basis of the information
that it did obtain, the committee uncovered no evidence that Ruby or
members of his family profited from the killing of Oswald. (150) Particular
allegations concerning the increased business and personal incomes of
Ruby's brother Earl were investigated, but the committee
found no link between Earl Ruby's finances and the Oswald slaying. (151)
Earl Ruby did say he had been approached by the Chicago
bondsman and associate of organized crime figures, Irwin Weiner, who
made a business proposition to him in 1978. the day before Earl Ruby
was to testify before the committee. (152) Earl Ruby said he declined
the offer,(153) while Weiner denied to the committee he ever made
it. (154) The committee was not able to resolve the difference between
the two witnesses.

(4) Involvement of organized crime.---In contrast to the Warren
Commission, the committee's investigation of the possible involvement
of organized crime in the assassination was not limited to an examination
of Jack Ruby. The committee also directed its attention to organized
crime itself.

Organized crime is a term of many meanings. It can be used to refer
to the crimes committed by organized criminal groups--gambling, narcotics,
loan-sharking, theft and fencing, and the like.(155) It can
also be used to refer to the criminal group that commit those
crimes. (156) Here, a distinction may be drawn between an organized
crime enterprise that engages in providing illicit goods and services
and an organized crime syndicate that regulates relations between individual
enterprises--allocating territory, settling personal disputes,
establishing gambling payoffs, etc. (157) Syndicates, too, are of different
types. They may be metropolitan, regional, national or interna-

Page 160

tional in scope; they may be limited to one field of endeavor--for
example, narcotics- or they may cover a broad range of illicit
activities. (158).

Often, but not always, the term organized crime refers to a particular
organized crime syndicate, variously known as the Mafia or La Cosa
Nostra,(159) and it is in this sense that the committee has used the
phrase. This organized crime syndicate was the principal target of
the committee investigation. (160)

The committee found that by 1964 the fundamental structure and
operations of organized crime in America had changed little since the
early 1950's, when, after conducting what was then the most extensive
investigation of organized crime in history, the Kefauver committee
concluded:

1. There is a nationwide crime syndicate known as the
Mafia, whose tentacles are found in many large cities. It has
international ramifications which appear most clearly in connection
with the narcotics traffic.
2. Its leaders are usually found in control of the most lucrative
rackets in their cities.
3. There are indications of a centralized direction and control
of these rackets, but leadership appears to be in a group
rather than in a single individual.
4. The Mafia is the cement that helps to bind the ...syndicate of New York and the
...syndicate of Chicago as well as smaller criminal gangs and individual criminals
through the country.
5. The domination of the Mafia is based fundamentally on
"muscle" and "murder." The Mafia is a secret conspiracy
against law and order which will ruthlessly eliminate anyone
who stands in the way of its success in any criminal enterprise
in which it is interested. It will destroy anyone who betrays its
secrets. It will use any means available--political influence,
bribery, intimidation, et cetera, to defeat any attempt on the
part of law enforcement to touch its top figures.... (161)

The committee reviewed the evolution of the national crime syndicate
in the years after the Kefauver committee and found continuing
vitality, even more sophisticated techniques, and an increased concern
for the awareness by law enforcement authorities of the danger it
posed to the Nation. (162) In 1967, after having conducted a lengthy
examination of organized crime in the United States, the President's
Crime Commission offered another description of the power and
influence of the American underworld in the 1960's:

Organized crime is a society that seeks to operate outside
the control of the American people and their governments. It
involves thousands of criminals, working within structures
as complex as those of any large corporation, subject to laws
more rigidly enforced than those of legitimate governments.
Its actions are not impulsive but rather the result of intricate
conspiracies, carried on over many years and aimed at gaining
control over whole fields of activity in order to amass huge
profits.(163)

Page 161

An analysis by the committee revealed that the Kennedy administration
brought about the strongest effort against organized crime that
had ever been coordinated by the Federal Government.(164) John
and Robert Kennedy brought to their respective positions as President
and Attorney General an unprecedented familiarity with the
threat of organized crime--and a commitment to prosecute its leaders--
based on their service as member and chief counsel respectively
of the McClellan Committee during its extensive investigation of
labor racketeering in the late 1950's. (165) A review of the electronic
surveillance conducted by the FBI from 1961 to 1964 demonstrated
that members of La Cosa Nostra, as well as other organized crime
figures, were quite cognizant of the stepped-up effort against them, and
they placed responsibility for it directly upon President Kennedy and
Attorney General Kennedy. (166)

During this period, the FBI had comprehensive electronic coverage
of the major underworld figures, particularly those who comprised the
commission. 8(167) The committee had access to and analyzed the
product of this electronic coverage; it reviewed literally thousands of
pages of electronic surveillance logs that revealed the innermost workings
of organized crime in the United States. (168) The committee saw
in stark terms a record of murder, violence, bribery, corruption, and
an untold variety of other crimes. (169) Uniquely among congressional
committees, and in contrast to the Warren Commission, the committee
became familiar with the nature and scope of organized crime in the
years before and after the Kennedy assassination, using as its evidence
the words of the participants themselves.

An analysis of the work of the Justice Department before and after
the tenure of Robert Kennedy as Attorney General also led to the conclusion
that organized crime directly benefited substantially from the
changes in Government policy that occurred after the assassination.
(170) That organized crime had the motive, opportunity and means
to kill the President cannot be questioned. (171) Whether it did so is
another matter.

In its investigation of the decisionmaking process and dynamics of
organized crime murders and intrasyndicate assassinations during the
early 1960's. the committee noted the extraordinary web of insulation,
secrecy, and complex machinations that frequently surrounded organized
crime leaders who ordered such acts.(172) In testimony before
the Senate on September 25, 1963, 2 months before his brother's assassination,
Attorney General Kennedy spoke of the Government's continuing
difficulty in solving murders carried out by organized crime
elements, particularly those ordered by members of the La Cosa Nostra
commission. Attorney General Kennedy testified that:

...because the members of the Commission, the top members,
or even their chief lieutenants, have insulated themselves
from the crime itself, if they want to have somebody knocked
off, for instance, the top man will speak to somebody who will
speak to somebody else who will speak to somebody else and
order it. The man who actually does the gun work, who might

8The ruling council of 9 to 12 Mafia leaders who
collectively rule the national crime syndicate

Page 162

get paid $250 or $500, depending on how important it is, perhaps
nothing at all he does not know who ordered it. To trace
that back is virtually impossible. (173)

The committee studied the Kennedy assassination in terms of the
traditional forms of violence used by organized crime and the historic
pattern of underworld slayings. While the murder of the President's
accused assassin did in fact fit the traditional pattern--a shadowy man
with demonstrable organized crime connections shoots down a crucial
witness--the method of the President's assassination did not resemble
the standard syndicate killing.(174) A person like Oswald-young,
active in controversial political causes, apparently not subject to the
internal discipline of a criminal organization--would appear to be
the least likely candidate for the role of Mafia hit man, especially in
such an important murder. Gunmen used in organized crime killings
have traditionally been selected with utmost deliberation and care, the
most important considerations being loyalty and a willingness to
remain silent if apprehended. These are qualities best guaranteed by
past participation in criminal activities. (175)

There are, however, other factors to be weighed in evaluating the
method of possible operation in the assassination of President Kennedy.
While the involvement of a gunman like Oswald does not readily
suggest organized crime involvement, any underworld attempt to assassinate
the President would in all likelihood have dictated the use of
some kind of cover, a shielding or disguise. (176) The committee made
the reasonable assumption that an assassination of a President by
organized crime could not be allowed to appear to be what it was.

Traditional organized crime murders are generally committed
through the use of killers who make no effort to hide the fact that organized
crime was responsible for such murders or "hits."(177)
While syndicate-authorized hits are usually executed in such a way that
identification of the killers is not at all likely, the slayings are nonetheless
committed in what is commonly referred to as the "gangland
style."(178) Indeed, an intrinsic characteristic of the typical
mob execution is that it serves as a self-apparent message, with the
authorities and the public readily perceiving the nature of the crime as well
as the general identity of the group or gang that carried it out.(179)

The execution of a political leader--most particularly a President
would hardly be a typical mob execution and might well necessitate
a different method of operation. The overriding consideration in such
an extraordinary crime would be the avoidance of any appearance of
organized crime complicity. (180)

In its investigation, the committee noted three cases, for the purposes
of illustration, in which the methodology employed by syndicate
figures was designed to insulate and disguise the involvement of organized
crime. (181) These did not fit the typical pattern of mob killings,
as the assassination of a President would not. (182) While the a
typical cases did not involve political leaders, two of the three were
attacks on figures in the public eye. (183)

In the first case, the acid blinding of investigative reporter Victor
Riesel in April 1956, organized crime figures in New York used a
complex series of go-betweens to hire a petty thief and burglar to

Page 163

commit the act. (184) Thus, the assailant did not know who had actually
authorized the crime for which he had been recruited. (185) The
use of such an individual was regarded as unprecedented, as he had not
been associated with the syndicate, was a known drug user, and outwardly
appeared to be unreliable.(186) Weeks later, Riesel's assailant
was slain by individuals who had recruited him in the plot. (187)

The second case, the fatal shooting of a well-known businessman,
Sol Landie, in Kansas City, Mo., on November 22, 1970, involved the
recruitment, through several intermediaries, of four young Black men
by members of the local La Cosa Nostra family.(188) Landie had
served as a witness in a Federal investigation of gambling activities
directed by Kansas City organized crime leader Nicholas Civella.
The men recruited for the murder did not know who had ultimately ordered
the killing, were not part of the Kansas City syndicate, and had received
instructions through intermediaries to make it appear that robbery was
the motive for the murder. (189) All of the assailants and
two of the intermediaries were ultimately convicted.

The third case, the shooting of New York underworld leader Joseph
Columbo before a crowd of 65,000 people in June 1971, was carried
out by a young Black man with a petty criminal record, a nondescript
loner who appeared to be alien to the organized crime group that
had recruited him through various go-betweens.(190) The gunman was
shot to death immediately after the shooting of Columbo, a murder still
designated as unsolved. (191) (Seriously wounded by a shot to the
head, Columbo lingered for years in a semiconscious state before he
died in 1978.)

The committee found that these three cases, each of which is an
exception to the general rule of organized crime executions, had
identifiable similarities.(192) Each case was solved, in that the identity
of the perpetrator of the immediate act became known. (193) In two
of the cases, the assailant was himself murdered soon after the
crime.(194) In each case, the person who wanted the crime accomplished
recruited the person or persons who made the attack through
more than one intermediary.(195) In each case, the person suspected
of inspiring the violence was a member of, or connected to, La Cosa Nostra. (196)
In each case, the person or persons hired were not professional killers, and
they were not part of organized criminal groups. (197) In each case,
the persons recruited to carry out the acts could be characterized as dupes
or tools who were being used in a conspiracy they were not fully aware of. (198)
In each case, the intent was to insulate the organized crime connection, with a particular
requirement for disguising the true identity of the conspirators, and to place
the blame on generally nondescript individuals. (199) These exceptions
to the general rule of organized crime violence made it impossible for
the committee to preclude, on the basis of an analysis of the method of
the assassination, that President Kennedy was killed by elements of
organized crime. (200)

In its investigation into the possibility that organized crime elements
were involved in the President's murder, the committee examined
various internal and external factor that bear on whether organized
crime leaders would have considered, planned and executed an assas-

Page 164

sination conspiracy. (201) The committee examined the decisionmaking
process that would have been involved in such a conspiracy, and
two primary propositions emerged. (202) The first related to whether
the national crime syndicate would have authorized and formulated a
conspiracy with the formal consent of the commission, the ruling council of
Mafia leaders. (203) The second related to whether an individual
organized crime leader, or possibly a small combination of leaders,
might have conspired to assassinate the President through unilateral
action, that is, without the involvement of the leadership of the
national syndicate. (204)

The most significant evidence that organized crime as an institution
or group was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy
was contained in the electronic surveillance of syndicate leaders conducted
by the FBI in the early 1960's. (205) As the President's Crime
Commission noted in 1967, and as this committee found through its
review of the FBI surveillance, there was a distinct hierarchy and
structure to organized crime. (206) Decisions of national importance
were generally made by the national commission, or at least they depended
on the approval of the commission members. (207) In 1963, the
following syndicate leaders served as members of the commission: Vito Genovese,
Joseph Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, and Thomas Lucchese of New York City;
Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo; Sam Giancana of Chicago; Joseph Zerilli
of Detroit; Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia and Raymond Patriarca of
Providence. (208) The committee's review of the surveillance
transcripts and logs, detailing the private conversations of the commission
members and their associates, revealed that there were extensive and heated
discussions about the serious difficulties the Kennedy administration's crackdown on
organized crime was causing. (209)

The bitterness and anger with which organized crime leaders viewed
the Kennedy administration are readily apparent in the electronic surveillance
transcripts, with such remarks being repeatedly made by
commission members Genovese, Giancana, Bruno, Zerilli, Patriarca
and Magaddino.(210) In one such conversation in May 1962, a New
York Mafia member noted the intense Federal pressure upon the mob,
and remarked, "Bob Kennedy won't stop today until he puts us all
in jail all over the country. Until the commission meets and puts its
foot down, things will be at a standstill."(211) Into 1963, the
pressure was continuing to mount, as evidenced by a conversation in which
commission member Magaddino bitterly cursed Attorney General Kennedy
and commented on the Justice Department's increasing knowledge of
the crime syndicates inner workings, stating, "They know everything
under the sun. They know who's back of it--they know there is a commission.
We got to watch right now--and stay as quiet as possible." (212)

While the committee's examination of the electronic surveillance
program revealed no shortage of such conversations during that period,
the committee found no evidence in the conversations of the formulation
of any specific plan to assassinate the President. (213) Nevertheless,
that organized crime figures did discuss possible violent courses
of action against either the President or his brother, Attorney Gen-

Page 165

eral Robert F. Kennedy--as well as the possible repercussions of such
action-can be starkly seen in the transcripts.(214)

One such discussion bears quoting at length. It is a conversation between
commission member Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia and an associate
Willie Weisburg, on February 8, 1962. (215) In the discussion,
in response to Weisburg's heated suggestion that Attorney General
Kennedy should be murdered, Bruno cautioned that Kennedy might be
followed by an even worse Attorney General:

WEISBURG. See what Kennedy done. With Kennedy, a guy
should take a knife, like all them other guys, and stab and kill
the [obscenity], where he is now. Somebody should kill the [obscenity],
I mean it. This is true. Honest to God. It's about time to go.
But I tell you something. I hope I git a week's
notice, I'll kill. Right in the [obscenity] in the White House. Somebody's
got to rid of this [obscenity].
BRUNO. Look, Willie, do you see there was a king, do you
understand. And he found out that everybody was saying
that he was a bad king. This is an old Italian story. So, he
figured. Let me go talk to the old woman. She knows everything.
So he went to the old wise woman. So he says to her: "I came here
because I want your opinion." He says: "Do you think I'm a
bad king? She says: "No, I think you are a good king."
He says: "Well how can everybody says I'm a bad king?"
She says: "Because they are stupid. They don't know."
He says: Well how come, why do you say I'm a good king?"
"Well," she said, "I knew your great grandfather. He
was a bad king. I knew your grandfather. He was worse. I
knew your father. He was worse than them. You, you are
worse than them, but your son, if you die, your son is going
to be worse than you. So its better to be with you." [All
laugh.] So Brownell--former Attorney General--was bad.
He was no [obscenity] good. He was this and that.
WEISBURG. Do you know what this man is going to do? He
ain't going to leave nobody alone.
BRUNO. I know he ain't. But you see, everybody in there was
bad. The other guy was good because the other guy was worse.
Do you understand? Brownell came. He was no good. He was
worse than the guy before.
WEISBURG. Not like this one.
BRUNO. Not like this one. This one is worse. right? If
something happens to this guy...[laughs]. (216)

While Angelo Bruno had hoped to wait out his troubles, believing
that things might get better for him as time went by, such was not
to be the case during the Kennedy administration. The electronic surveillance
transcripts disclosed that by mid 1963, Bruno was privately
making plans to shut down his syndicate operations and leave America,
an unprecedented response by a commission member to Federal
law enforcement pressure.(217)

Another member of the mob commission, Stefano Magaddino,
voiced similar anger toward the President during that same period. (218)
In October 1963, in response to a Mafia family member's

Page 166

remark that President Kennedy "should drop dead," Magaddino exploded,
"They should kill the whole family, the mother and father too.
When he talks he talks like a mad dog, he says, my brother the Attorney General." (219)

The committee concluded that had the national crime syndicate, as
a group, been involved in a conspiracy to kill the President, some trace
of the plot would have been picked up by the FBI surveillance of the
commission. (220) Consequently, finding no evidence in the electronic
surveillance transcripts of a specific intention or actual plan by commission
members to have the President assassinated, the committee
believed it was unlikely that it existed. The electronic surveillance
transcripts included extensive conversations during secret meetings of
various syndicate leaders, set forth many of their most closely guarded
thoughts and actions, and detailed their involvement in a variety of
other criminal acts, including murder.(221) Given the far-reaching
possible consequences of an assassination plot by the commission, the
committee found that such a conspiracy would have been the subject
of serious discussion by members of the commission, and that no matter how
guarded such discussions might have been, some trace of them
would have emerged from the surveillance coverage. (222) It was possible
to conclude, therefore, that it is unlikely that the national crime
syndicate as a group, acting under the leadership of the commission,
participated in the assassination of President Kennedy.(223)

While there was an absence of evidence in the electronic surveillance
materials of commission participation in the President's murder, there
was no shortage of evidence of the elation and relief of various commission
members over his death.(224) The surveillance transcripts
contain numerous crude and obscene comments by organized crime
leaders, their lieutenants, associates and families regarding the assassination
of President Kennedy.(225) The transcripts also reveal an
awareness by some mob leaders that the authorities might be watching
their reactions. (226) On November 25, 1963, in response to a
lieutenant's remark that Oswald "was an anarchist ...a Marxist Communist,"
Giancana exclaimed, "He was a marksman who knew how
to shoot."(227) On November 29, 1963, Magaddino cautioned his associates
not to joke openly about the President's murder, stating,
"You can be sure that the police spies will be watching carefully to
see what we think and say about this." (228) Several weeks later, during
a discussion between Bruno and his lieutenants, one participant
remarked of the late President, "It is too bad his brother Bobby was
not in that car too."(229)

While the committee found it unlikely that the national crime syndicate
was involved in the assassination, it recognized the possibility
that a particular organized crime leader or a small combination of
leaders, acting unilaterally, might have formulated an assassination
conspiracy without the consent of the commission. (230)

In its investigation of the national crime syndicate, the committee
noted factors that could have led an organized crime leader who was
considering an assassination to withhold it from the national commission.(231)
The committee's analysis of the national commission disclosed that it was splintered
by dissension and enmity in 1963. Rivalry between two blocks of syndicate families
had resulted in a partial paralysis of the commission's functions. (232)

Page 167

One significant reason for the disarray was, of course, the pressure
being exerted by Federal law enforcement agencies. (233) In the fall
of 1963, Attorney General Kennedy noted,

...in the past 2 years, at least three carefully planned
commission meetings had to be called off because the leaders
learned that we had uncovered their well-concealed plans and
meeting places.

The Government's effort got an unprecedented boost from the willingness of
Joseph Valachi, a member of the "family" of commission
member Vito Genovese of New York, to testify about the internal
structure and activities of the crime syndicate, a development described
by Attorney General Kennedy as "the greatest intelligence
breakthrough" in the history of the Federal program against organized crime. (234)
While it was not until August 1963 that Valachi's
identity as a Federal witness became public, the surveillance transcripts
disclose that syndicate leaders were aware as early as the
spring of 1963 that Valachi was cooperating with the Justice Department.(235)
The transcripts disclose that the discovery that Valachi
had become a Federal informant aroused widespread suspicion
fear over the possibility of other leaks and informants within the upper
echelons of the syndicate. (236) The televised Senate testimony by
Valachi led to considerable doubt by syndicate leaders in other parts
of the country as to the security of commission proceedings, with
Genovese rapidly losing influence as a result of Valachi's actions. (237)

The greatest source of internal disruption within the commission
related to the discovery in early 1963 of a secret plan by commission
member Joseph Bonanno to assassinate fellow members Carlo Gambino
and Thomas Lucchese. (238) Bonanno's assassination plan, aimed
at an eventual takeover of the commission leadership, was discovered
after one of the gunmen Bonanno had enlisted, Joseph Columbo, informed
on him to the commission. (239) The Bonanno conspiracy, an
unheard-of violation of commission rules, led to a long series of acrimonious
deliberations that lasted until early 1964. (240) Bonanno refused
to submit to the judgment of the commission, and his colleagues
were sharply divided over how to deal with his betrayal, Gambino
recommending that Bonanno be handled with caution, and Giancana
urging that he be murdered.(241)

The committee concluded, based on the state of disruption within
the commission and the questions that had arisen as to the sanctity of
commission proceedings, that an individual organized crime leader
who was planning an assassination conspiracy against President Kennedy
might well have avoided making the plan known to the commission or
seeking approval for it from commission members. (242) Such
a course of unilateral action seemed to the committee to have been
particularly possible in the case of powerful organized crime
leaders who were well established, with firm control over their
jurisdictions.(243)

The committee noted a significant precedent for such a unilateral
course of action. In 1957, Vito Genovese engineered the assassination
of Albert Anastasia, then perhaps the most feared Mafia boss in the
country. (244) Six months earlier, Genovese's men had shot and wounded
Frank Costello, who once was regarded as the single most influential

Page 168

organized crime leader.(245) Both the Anastasia assassination and
the Costello assault were carried out without the knowledge or consent
of the national commission.(246) Genovese did, however, obtain
approval for the crimes after the fact. (247) It was an extraordinary
sequence of events that Attorney General Kennedy noted in September
1963, when he stated that Genovese "...wanted Commission approval
for these acts--which he has received." The Genovese plot against
Anastasia and Costello and the ex post facto commission approval
were integral events in the rise to dominance of organized crime figures
for the years that followed. It directly led to the assemblage of national
syndicate leaders at the Apalachin conference 3 weeks after the Anastasia
murder, and to the rise of Carlo Gambino to a position of preeminence
in La Costa Nostra. (248)

(5) Analysis of the 1963-64 investigation--In its investigation, the
committee learned that fears of the possibility that organized crime
was behind the assassination were more common among Government
officials at the time than has been generally recognized. Both Attorney
General Kennedy and President Johnson privately voiced suspicion
about underworld complicity.(249) The Attorney General requested
that any relevant information be forwarded directly to him, and there
was expectation at the time that the recently created Warren Commission
would actively investigate the possibility of underworld involvement. (250)

The committee found, however, that the Warren Commission conducted
only a limited pursuit of the possibility of organized crime
complicity. (251) As has been noted, moreover, the Warren Commission's
interest in organized crime was directed exclusively at Jack
Ruby, and it did not involve any investigation of the national crime
syndicate in general, or individual leaders in particular.(252) This
was confirmed to the committee by J. Lee Rankin, the Commission's
general counsel, and by Burt W. Griffin, the staff counsel who conducted
the Ruby investigation. (253) Griffin testified before the committee
that "...the possibility that someone associated with the
underworld would have wanted to assassinate the President...
[was] not seriously explored" by the Warren Commission. (254)

The committee similarly learned from testimony and documentation
that the FBI's investigation of the President's assassination was
also severely limited in the area of possible organized crime
involvement. While the committee found that the Bureau was uniquely
equipped, with the Special Investigative Division having been formed 2
years earlier specifically to investigate organized crime, the specialists
and agents of that Division did not play a significant role in the assassination
investigation. (255) Former Assistant FBI Director Courtney
Evans, who headed the Special Investigative Division, told the committee
that the officials who directed the investigation never consulted
him or asked for any participation by his Division.(256) Evans
recalled, "I know they sure didn't come to me. We had no part in that
that I can recall." (257) Al Staffeld, a former FBI official who supervised
the day-to-day operations of the Special Investigative Division,
told the committee that if the FBI's organized crime specialists had
been asked to participate, "We would have gone at it in every damn
way possible."(258)

Page 169

Ironically, the Bureau's own electronic surveillance transcripts
revealed to the committee a conversation between Sam Giancana and
a lieutenant, Charles English, regarding the FBI's role in investigating
President Kennedy's assassination. (259). In the December 3, 1963
conversation, English told Giancana:"I will tell you something, in
another 2 months from now, the FBI will be like it was 5 years ago.
They won't be around no more. They say the FBI will get it (the
investigation of the President's assassination). They're gonna start
running down Fair Play for Cuba, Fair Play for Matsu. They call
that more detrimental to the country than us guys."(260)

The committee found that the quality and scope of the investigation
into the possibility of an organized crime conspiracy in the President's
assassination by the Warren Commission and the FBI was not sufficient
to uncover one had it existed. The committee also found that it
was possible, based on an analysis of motive, means and opportunity,
that an individual organized crime leader, or a small combination of
leaders, might have participated in a conspiracy to assassinate President
Kennedy. The committee's extensive investigation led it to conclude
that the most likely family bosses of organized crime to have
participated in such a unilateral assassination plan were Carlos Marcello
and Santos Trafficante. (261) While other family bosses on the
commission were subjected to considerable coverage in the electronic
surveillance program, such coverage was never applied to Marcello
and almost never to Trafficante. (262)

(6) Carlos Marcello.--The committee found that Marcello had the
motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy
assassinated, (263) though it was unable to establish direct evidence of
Marcello's complicity.

In its investigation of Marcello, the committee identified the presence
of one critical evidentiary element that was lacking with the
other organized crime figures examined by the committee: credible
associations relating both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby to figures
having a relationship, albeit tenuous, with Marcello's crime family
or organization. (264) At the same time, the committee explicitly
cautioned: association is the first step in conspiracy; it is not identical
to it, and while associations may legitimately give rise to suspicions,
a careful distinction must always be drawn between suspicions suspected
and facts found.

As the long-time La Cosa Nostra leader in an area that is based in
New Orleans but extends throughout Louisiana and Texas, Marcello
was one of the prime targets of Justice Department efforts during the
Kennedy administration.(265) He had, in fact, been temporarily
removed from the country for a time in 1961 through deportation proceedings
personally expedited by Attorney General Kennedy. (266)
In his appearance before the committee in executive session, Marcello
exhibited an intense dislike for Robert Kennedy because of these
actions, claiming that he had been illegally "kidnaped"by Government
agents during the deportation. (267)

While the Warren Commission devoted extensive attention to
Oswald's background and activities, the committee uncovered
significant details of his exposure to and contacts with figures
associated

Page 170

with the underworld of New Orleans that apparently had escaped the
Commission.(268) One Such relationship actually extended into
Oswald's own family through his uncle, Charles "Dutz" Murret, a
minor underworld gambling figure.(269) The committee discovered
that Murret, who served as a surrogate father of sorts throughout much
of Oswald's life in New Orleans, was in the 1940's and 1950's and possibly
until his death in 1964: an associate of significant organized crime
figures affiliated with the Marcello organization. (270)

The committee established that Oswald was familiar with his uncle's
underworld activities and had discussed them with his wife, Marina,
in 1963.(271) Additionally, the committee found that Oswald's
mother, Marguerite Oswald, was acquainted with several men associated
with lieutenants in the Marcello organization. One such
acquaintance, who was also an associate of Dutz Murret, reportedly
served as a personal aide or driver to Marcello at one time. (272)
In another instance, the committee found that an individual connected
to Dutz Murret, the person who arranged bail for Oswald following his
arrest in August 1963 for a street disturbance, was an associate of two
of Marcello's syndicate deputies. (One of the two, Nofio Pecora, as
noted, also received a telephone call from Ruby on October 30,
1963, according to the committee's computer analysis of Ruby's phone
records.) (273)

During the course of its investigation, the committee developed
several areas of credible evidence and testimony indicating a possible
association in New Orleans and elsewhere between Lee Harvey
Oswald and David W. Ferrie, a private investigator and even, perhaps,
a pilot for Marcello before and during 1963.(274) From the
evidence available to the committee, the nature of the Oswald-Ferrie
association remained largely a mystery. The committee established
that Oswald and Ferrie apparently first came into contact with each
other during Oswald's participation as a teenager in a Civil Air
Patrol unit for which Ferrie served as an instructor, although Ferrie, when
he was interviewed by the FBI after his detainment as a suspect in
the assassination,(275) denied any past association with Oswald.

In interviews following the assassination, Ferrie stated that he may
have spoken in an offhand manner of the desirability of having President
Kennedy shot, but he denied wanting such a deed actually to be
done.(276) Ferrie also admitted his association with Marcello and
stated that he had been in personal contact with the syndicate leader
in the fall of 1963. He noted that on the morning of the day of the
President's death he was present with Marcello at a courthouse in New
Orleans. (277) In his executive session testimony before the committee,
Marcello acknowledged that Ferrie did work for his lawyer, G. Wray Gill,
on his case, but Marcello denied that Ferrie worked for
him or that their relationship was close. (278) Ferrie died in 1967 of
a ruptured blood vessel at the base of the brain, shortly after he was
named in the assassination investigation of New Orleans District
Attorney Jim Garrison.

The committee also confirmed that the address 544 Camp Street,
that Oswald had printed on some Fair Play for Cuba Committee
handouts in New Orleans, was the address of a small office building

Page 171

where Ferrie was working on at least a part-time basis in 1963.
The Warren Commission stated in its report that despite the Commission's
probe into why Oswald used this return address on his literature,
"investigation has indicated that neither the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee nor Lee Oswald ever maintained an office at that address." (280)

The committee also established associations between Jack Ruby and
several individuals affiliated with the underworld activities of Carlos
Marcello. (281) Ruby was a personal acquaintance of Joseph Civello,
the Marcello associate, who allegedly headed organized crime activities
in Dallas; he also knew other individuals who have been linked
with organized crime, including a New Orleans nightclub figure,
Harold Tannenbaum, with whom Ruby was considering going into
partnership in the fall of 1963. (282)9

The committee examined a widely circulated published account
that Marcello made some kind of threat on the life of President Kennedy
in September 1962 at a meeting at his Churchill Farms estate
outside New Orleans.(284) It was alleged that Marcello shouted an
old Sicilian threat, "Livarsi na petra di la scarpa!" "Take the
stone out of my shoe!" against the Kennedy brothers, stating that the
President ways going to be assassinated. He spoke of using a "nut" to
carry out the murder. (285)

The committee established the origin of the story and identified the
informant who claimed to have been present at the meeting during
which Marcello made the threat.(286) The committee also learned
that even though the FBI was aware of the informant's allegations
over a year and half before they were published in 1969, and possessed
additional information indicating that the informant may in fact have
met with Marcello in the fall of 1962, a substantive investigation of
the information was never conducted. (287) Director Hoover and
other senior FBI officials were aware that FBI agents were initiating
action to "discredit" the informant, without having conducted a
significant investigation of his allegations. (288) Further, the committee
discovered that the originating office relied on derogatory information
from a prominent underworld figure in the ongoing effort to discredit
the informant (289) An internal memorandum to Hoover noted that another
FBI source was taking action to discredit the informant, "in order
that the Carlos Marcello incident would be deleted from the book that
first recounted the information. (290)

The committee determined that the informant who gave the account
of the Marcello threat was in fact associated with various underworld
figures, including at least one person well-acquainted with the Marcello
organization.(291) The committee noted, however, that as a
consequence of his underworld involvement, the informant had a questionable
reputation for honesty and may not be a credible source of
information. (292)

9Law enforcement files have long contained information
suggesting that Joseph Campisi, a restaurant owner in Dallas, occupied a position in
organized crime. The committee's investigation did not confirm or refute the allegation, but
it did establish that Ruby visited Campisi's restaurant on the evening of November 21 and that Ruby
was visited in jail after the shooting of Oswald by Campisi and his wife. Further, Campisi
acknowledged a longstanding business and personal relationship with Marcello. (283)

Page 172

The committee noted further that it is unlikely that an organized
crime leader personally involved in an assassination plot would discuss
it with anyone other than his closest lieutenants, although he
might be willing to discuss it more freely prior to a serious decision
to undertake such an act. In his executive session appearance before
the committee, Marcello categorically denied any involvement in
organized crime or the assassination of President Kennedy. Marcello
also denied ever making any kind of threat against the President's
life.(293)

As noted, Marcello was never the subject of electronic surveillance
coverage by the FBI. The committee found that the Bureau did
make two attempts to effect such surveillance during the early 1960's,
but both attempts were unsuccessful.(294) Marcello's sophisticated
security system and close-knit organizational structure may have been
a factor in preventing such surveillance. 10 A former FBI official
knowledgeable about the surveillance program told the committee,
"That was our biggest gap .... With Marcello, you've got the one
big exception in our work back then. There was just no way of penetrating
that area. He was too smart."(296)

Any evaluation of Marcello's possible role in the assassination
must take into consideration his unique stature within La Cosa Nostra.
The FBI determined in the 1960's that because of Marcello's position
as head of the New Orleans Mafia family (the oldest in the United
States, having first entered the country in the 1880's), the Louisiana
organized crime leader had been endowed with special powers and
privileges not accorded to any other La Cosa Nostra members. (297) As
the leader of "the first family" of the Mafia in America, according to
FBI information, Marcello has been the recipient of the extraordinary
privilege of conducting syndicate operations without having to seek
the approval of the national commission.(298)

Finally, a caveat, Marcello's uniquely successful career in organized
crime has been based to a large extent on a policy of prudence; he is not reckless.
As with the case of the Soviet and Cuban Governments, a risk analysis indicated
that he would be unlikely to undertake
so dangerous a course of action as a Presidential assassination. Considering
that record of prudence, and in the absence of direct evidence
of involvement, it may be said that it is unlikely that Marcello was in
fact involved in the assassination of the President. On the basis of the
evidence available to it, and in the context of its duty to be cautious in its
evaluation of the evidence, there is no other conclusion that the
committee could reach. On the other hand, the evidence that he had
the motive and the evidence of links through associates to both Oswald
and Ruby, coupled with the failure of the 1963-64 investigation to
explore adequately possible conspiratorial activity in the assassination,
precluded a judgment by the committee that Marcello and his associates
were not involved.

(7) Santos Trafficante.--The committee also concentrated its attention
on Santos Trafficante, the La Cosa Nostra leader in Florida. The

10In addition Marcello was considered by his FBI case
agent to be a legitimate businessman, which may account for the fact that the case agent was less than
enthusiastic about pressing an investigation of the Louisiana Mafia leader. (295)

Page 173

committee found that Trafficante, like Marcello, had the motive, means,
and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy. (299)

Trafficante was a key subject of the Justice Department crackdown
on organized crime during the Kennedy administration, with his name
being added to a list of the top 10 syndicate leaders targeted for investigation.
(300) Ironically, attorney General Kennedy's strong interest in having
Trafficante prosecuted occurred during the same period in which CIA
officials, unbeknownst to the Attorney General, were using Trafficante's
services in assassination plots against the Cuban chief of state, Fidel
Castro. (301)

The committee found that Santos Trafficante's stature in the national
syndicate of organized crime, notably the violent narcotics trade,
and his role as the mob's chief liaison to criminal figures within the
Cuban exile community, provided him with the capability of formulating
an assassination conspiracy against President Kennedy. Trafficante
had recruited Cuban nationals to help plan and execute the CIA's assignment
to assassinate Castro. (The CIA gave the assignment to former
FBI Agent Robert Maheu, who passed the contract along to
Mafia figures Sam Giancana and John Roselli. They, in turn,
enlisted Trafficante to have the intended assassination carried out.) (302)

In his testimony before the committee, Trafficante admitted participating
in the unsuccessful CIA conspiracy to assassinate Castro, an
admission indicating his willingness to participate in political murder.
(303) Trafficante testified that he worked with the CIA out of a patriotic
feeling for his country, an explanation the committee did not
accept, at least not as his sole motivation. (304)

As noted, the committee established a possible connection between
Trafficante and Jack Ruby in Cuba in 1959. (305) It determined there
had been a close friendship between Ruby and Lewis McWillie, who, as
a Havana gambler, worked in an area subject to the control of the
Trafficante Mafia family. (306) Further, it assembled documentary evidence
that Ruby made at least two, if not three or more, trips to Havana
in 1959 when McWillie was involved in underworld gambling operations
there. (307) Ruby may in fact have been serving as a courier for
underworld gambling interests in Havana, probably for the purpose of
transporting funds to a bank in Miami. (308)

The committee also found that Ruby had been connected with other
Trafficante associates--R. D. Matthews, Jack Todd, and James Dolan-- all of Dallas. (309)

Finally, the committee developed corroborating evidence that Ruby
may have met with Trafficante at Trescornia prison in Cuba during one
of his visits to Havana in 1959, as the CIA had learned but had discounted
in 1964. (310) While the committee was not able to determine
the purpose of the meeting, there was considerable evidence that it did
take place.(311)

During the course of its investigation of Santos Trafficante, the
committee examined an allegation that Trafficante had told a prominent
Cuban exile, Jose Aleman, that President Kennedy was going to be
assassinated. (312) According to Aleman, Trafficante made the
statement in a private conversation with him that took place sometime
in September 1962. (313) In an account of the alleged conversation
pub-

Page 174

lished by the Washington Post in 1976, Aleman was quoted as stating
that Trafficante had told him that President Kennedy was "going to
be hit." (314) Aleman further stated, however, that it was his
impression that Trafficante was not the specific individual who was allegedly
planning the murder. (315) Aleman was quoted as having noted that
Trafficante had spoken of Teamsters Union President James Hoffa during the same conversation, indicating that the President would
"get what is coming to him" as a result of his administration's intense
efforts to prosecute Hoffa. (316)

During an interview with the committee in March 1977, Aleman provided further details of his
alleged discussion with Trafficante in
September 1962.(317) Aleman stated that during the course of the
discussion, Trafficante had made clear to him that he was not guessing
that the President was going to be killed. Rather he did in fact
know that such a crime was being planned.(318) In his committee
interview, Aleman further stated that Trafficante had given him the
distinct impression that Hoffa was to be principally involved in planning
the Presidential murder. (319)

In September 1978, prior to his appearance before the committee in
public session. Aleman reaffirmed his earlier account of the alleged
September 1962 meeting with Trafficante. Nevertheless, shortly before
his appearance in public session, Aleman informed the committee
staff that he feared for his physical safety and was afraid of possible
reprisal from Trafficante or his organization. In this testimony, Aleman
changed his professed understanding of Trafficante's comments. Aleman
repeated under oath that Trafficante had said Kennedy was "going
to be hit, but he then stated it was his impression that Trafficante
may have only meant the President was going to be hit by "a lot of
Republican votes" in the 1964 election, not that he was going to be
assassinated. (320)

Appearing before the committee in public session on September 28,
1978, Trafficante categorically denied ever having discussed any plan
to assassinate President Kennedy. (321) Trafficante denied any foreknowledge
of or participation in the President's murder. (322) While
stating that he did in fact know Aleman and that he had met with him
on more than one occasion in 1962, Trafficante denied Aleman's account
of their alleged conversation about President Kennedy, and he denied
ever having made a threatening remark against the President.(323)

The committee found it difficult to understand how Aleman could
have misunderstood Trafficante during such a conversation, or why he
would have fabricated such an account. Aleman appeared to be a reputable
person, who did not seek to publicize his allegations, and he was
well aware of the potential danger of making such allegations against
a leader of La Costa Nostra. The committee noted, however, that Aleman's
prior allegations and testimony before the committee had made
him understandably fearful for his life.

The committee also did not fully understand why Aleman waited so
many years before publicly disclosing the alleged incident. While he
stated in 1976 that be had reported Trafficante's alleged remarks about
the President to FBI agents in 1962 and 1963, the committee's review

Page 175

of Bureau reports on his contacts with FBI agents did not reveal
a record of any such disclosure or comments at the time. (324)
Additionally, the FBI agent who served as Aleman's contact during that
period denied ever being told such information by Aleman.

Further, the committee found it difficult to comprehend why Trafficante,
if he was planning or had personal knowledge of an assassination plot,
would have revealed or hinted at such a sensitive matter
to Aleman. It is possible that Trafficante may have been expressing a
personal opinion, "The President ought to be hit," but it is unlikely
in the context of their relationship that Trafficante would have revealed
to Aleman the existence of a current plot to kill the president.
As previously noted with respect to Carlos Marcello, to have attained
his stature as the recognized organized crime leader of Florida for a
number of years. Trafficante necessarily had to operate in a characteristically
calculating and discreet manner. The relationship between Trafficante
and Aleman, a business acquaintance, does not seem
to have been close enough for Trafficante to have mentioned or alluded
to such a murder plot. The committee thus doubted that Trafficante
would have inadvertently mentioned such a plot. In sum, the committee
believed there were substantial factors that called into question the
validity of Aleman's account.

Nonetheless, as the electronic surveillance transcripts of Angelo
Bruno, Stefano Magaddino and other top organized crime leaders
make clear, there were in fact various underworld conversations in
which the desirability of having the President assassinated was discussed. (325)
There were private conversations in which assassination
was mentioned, although not in a context that indicated such a crime
had been specifically planned.(326) With this in mind, and in the absence
of additional evidence with which to evaluate the Aleman account
of Trafficante's alleged 1962 remarks, the committee concluded
that the conversation, if it did occur as Aleman testified, probably occurred
in such a circumscribed context.

As noted earlier, the committee's examination of the FBI's electronic
surveillance program of the early 1960's disclosed that Santos
Trafficante was the subject of minimal, in fact almost nonexistent, surveillance
coverage. (327) During one conversation in 1963, overheard
in a Miami restaurant, Trafficante had bitterly attacked the Kennedy
administration's efforts against organized crime, making obscene comments
about "Kennedy's right-hand man" who had recently coordinated
various raids on trafficante gambling establishments.(328)
In the conversation, Trafficante stated that he was under immense pressure
from Federal investigators, commenting "I know when I'm beat,
you understand? (329) Nevertheless, it was not possible to draw conclusions
about Trafficante actions based on the electronic surveillance
program since the coverage was so limited. Finally, as with Marcello,
the committee noted that Trafficante's cautious character is inconsistent
with his taking the risk of being involved in an assassination plot
against the President. The committee found, in the context of its duty
to be cautious in its evaluation of the evidence, that it is unlikely
that Trafficante plotted to kill the President, although it could not
rule out the possibility of such participation on the basis of available
evidence.

Page 176

(8) James R. Hoffa.--During the course of its investigation, the
committee also examined a number of areas of information and allegations
pertaining to James R. Hoffa and his Teamsters Union and underworld
associates. The long and close relationship between Hoffa
and powerful leaders of organized crime, his intense dislike of John
and Robert Kennedy dating back to their role in the McClellan Senate
investigation, together with his other criminal activities, led the committee
to conclude that the former Teamsters Union president had the
motive, means and opportunity for planning an assassination attempt
upon the life of President John F. Kennedy.

The committee found that Hoffa and at least one of his Teamster
lieutenants, Edward Partin, apparently did, in fact, discuss the planning
of an assassination conspiracy against President Kennedy's
brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in July or August of
1962.(330) Hoffa's discussion about such an assassination plan first
became known to the Federal Government in September 1962, when
Partin informed authorities that he had recently participated in such
a discussion with the Teamsters president. (331)

In October 1962, acting under the orders of Attorney General
Kennedy, FBI Director Hoover authorized a detailed polygraph examination
of Partin. (332) In the examination, the Bureau concluded
that Partin had been truthful in recounting Hoffa's discussion of a
proposed assassination plan.(333) Subsequently, the Justice Department
developed further evidence supporting Partin's disclosures, indicating
that Hoffa had spoken about the possibility of assassinating
the President's brother on more than one occasion. (334)

In an interview with the committee, Partin reaffirmed the account
of Hoffa's discussion of a possible assassination plan, and he stated
that Hoffa had believed that having the Attorney General murdered
would be the most effective way of ending the Federal Government's
intense investigation of the Teamsters and organized crime.(335)
Partin further told the committee that he suspected that Hoffa may
have approached him about the assassination proposal because Hoffa
believed him to be close to various figures in Carlos Marcello's syndicate
organization.(336) Partin, a Baton Rouge Teamsters official
with a criminal record, was then a leading Teamsters Union official
in Louisiana. Partin was also a key Federal witness against Hoffa in
the 1964 trial that led to Hoffa's eventual imprisonment. (337)

While the committee did not uncover evidence that the proposed
Hoffa assassination plan ever went beyond its discussion, the committee
noted the similarities between the plan discussed by Hoffa in 1962
and the actual events of November 22, 1963. While the committee was
aware of the apparent absence of any finalized method or plan during
the course of Hoffa's discussion about assassinating Attorney General
Kennedy, he did discuss the possible use of a lone gunman equipped
with a rifle with a telescopic sight, (338) the advisability of having
the assassination committed somewhere in the South, (339) as well as the
potential desirability of having Robert Kennedy shot while riding in a
convertible. (34O) While the similarities are present, the committee also
noted that they were not so unusual as to point ineluctably in a particular
direction. President Kennedy himself, in fact, noted that he was
vulnerable to rifle fire before his Dallas trip. Nevertheless, references

Page 177

to Hoffa's discussion about having Kennedy assassinated while riding
in a convertible were contained in several Justice Department memoranda
received by the Attorney General and FBI Director
Hoover in the fall of 1962.(341) Edward Partin told the committee
that Hoffa believed that by having Kennedy shot as he rode in a convertible,
the origin of the fatal shot or shots would be obscured. (342)
The context of Hoffa's discussion with Partin about an assassination
conspiracy further seemed to have been predicated upon the recruitment
of an assassin without any identifiable connection to the Teamsters
organization or Hoffa himself.(343) Hoffa also spoke of the
alternative possibility of having the Attorney General assassinated
through the use of some type of plastic explosives. (344)

The committee established that President Kennedy himself was
notified of Hoffa's secret assassination discussion shortly after the
Government learned of it. The personal journal of the late President's
friend, Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington
Post, reflects that the President informed him in February 1963 of
Hoffa's discussion about killing his brother. (345) Bradlee
noted that President Kennedy mentioned that Hoffa had spoken
of the desirability of having a silenced weapon used in such a
plan. Bradlee noted that while he found such a Hoffa discussion hard to
believe "the President was obviously serious" about it. (346)

Partly as a result of their knowledge of Hoffa's discussion of
assassination with Partin in 1962, various aides of the late President
Kennedy voiced private suspicions about the possibility of Hoffa complicity
in the President's assassination.(347) The committee learned
that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and White House Chief of
Staff Kenneth O'Donnell contacted several associates in the days immediately
following the Dallas murder to discuss the possibility of
Teamsters Union or organized crime involvement. (348)

As noted in the account of Ruby's telephone records, the committee
confirmed the existence of several contacts between Ruby and associates
of Hoffa during the period of October and November 1963,(349)
including one Hoffa aide whom Robert Kennedy had once described as
one of Hoffa's most violent lieutenants. (350) Those associates,
Barney Baker, Irwin Weiner and Dusty Miller, stated that Ruby had been in
touch with them for the sole purpose of seeking assistance in a nightclub
labor dispute. (351)

The committee learned that Attorney General Kennedy and his
aides arranged for the appointment of Charles Shaffer, a Justice Department
attorney, to the Warren Commission staff in order that the
possibility of Teamster involvement be watched. Shaffer confirmed to
the committee that looking into Hoffa was one purpose of his appointment.(352)

Yet, partly as a result of the Commission's highly circumscribed
approach to investigating possible underworld involvement, as well
as limited staff resources, certain areas of possible information
relating to Hoffa--such as the Ruby telephone calls--were not the subject
of in-depth investigation.(353) Nevertheless, in a lengthy Commission
memorandum prepared for the CIA in February 1964, the Teamsters
Union had been listed first on a list of potential groups to be
investigated in probing "ties between Ruby and others who might have been
interested in the assassination of President Kennedy." (354)

Page 178

During the course of its investigation, the committee noted the existence
of other past relationships between Ruby and associates of Hoffa,
apart from those disclosed by a review of the Ruby phone records. Two
such figures were Paul Dorfman, the Chicago underworld figure who
was instrumental in Hoffa's rise to power in the labor movement, and
David Yaras, the reputed organized crime executioner whose relationship
to Ruby dated back to their early days in Chicago. (355)

The committee also confirmed that another Teamsters official, Frank
Chavez, had spoken to Hoffa about murdering Robert Kennedy in
early 1967, shortly before Hoffa went to Federal prison. (356) During
that incident, Hoffa reportedly sharply rebuked his aide, telling him
that such a course of action was dangerous and should not be considered. (357)

In an interview with a newsman several weeks before his disappearance
and presumed murder, Hoffa denied any involvement in the assassination
of President Kennedy, and he disclaimed knowing anything about Jack Ruby
or his motivations in the murder of Oswald. Hoffa also denied that
he had ever discussed a plan to assassinate Robert Kennedy. (358)

As in the cases of Marcello and Trafficante, the committee stressed
that it uncovered no direct evidence that Hoffa was involved in a plot
on the President's life, much less the one that resulted in his death in
Dallas in November 1963. In addition, and as opposed to the cases of
Marcello and Trafficante, Hoffa was not a major leader of organized
crime. Thus, his ability to guarantee that his associates would be killed
if they turned Government informant may have been somewhat less
assured. Indeed, much of the evidence tending to incriminate Hoffa
was supplied by Edward Grady Partin, a Federal Government informant
who was with Hoffa when the Teamster president was on trial in
October 1962 in Tennessee for violating the Taft-Hartley Act. 11

It may be strongly doubted, therefore, that Hoffa would have risked
anything so dangerous as a plot against the President at a time that
he knew he was under active investigation by the Department of Justice.12

Finally, a note on Hoffa's character. He was a man of strong emotions who
hated the President and his brother, the Attorney General.
He did not regret the President's death, and he said so publicly. Nevertheless,
Hoffa was not a confirmed murderer, as were various organized crime leaders
whose involvement the committee considered, and he cannot be placed in
that category with them, even though he had extensive associations with them.
Hoffa's associations with such organized crime leaders grew out of the nature
of his union and the industry whose workers it represented. Organized crime and the violence
of the labor movement were facts of life for Hoffa; they were part of
the milieu in which he grew up and worked. But when he encountered
the only specific plot against a Kennedy that came to the attention of
the committee (the suggestion from Frank Chavez), he rejected it.

11Hoffa was in fact facing charges of trying to bribe the jury in his
1962 trial in Tennessee on November 22, 1963. The case was scheduled to go to trial in
January 1964. Hoffa was ultimately convicted and sentenced to a prison term. Partin
was the Government's chief witness against him.

12The committee found no evidence to indicate that Hoffa was under electronic
surveillance.

Page 179

The committee concluded, therefore, that the balance of the evidence
argued that it was improbable that Hoffa had anything to do with the death of the President.

(c) Summary and analysis of the evidence

The committee also believed it appropriate to reflect on the general
question of the possible complicity of organized crime members, such
as Trafficante or Marcello, in the Kennedy assassination, and to try to
put the evidence it had obtained in proper perspective.

The significance of the organized crime associations developed by the
committee's investigation speaks for itself, but there are limitations
that must be noted. That President Kennedy's assassin and the man
who, in turn, murdered him can be tied to individuals connected to organized
crime is important for one reason: for organized crime to have
been involved in the assassination, it must have had access to Oswald
or Ruby or both.

The evidence that has been presented by the committee demonstrates
that Oswald did, in fact, have organized crime associations. Who he
was and where he lived could have come to the attention of those in
organized crime who had the motive and means to kill the President.
Similarly, there is abundant evidence that Ruby was knowledgeable
about and known to organized crime elements. Nevertheless, the
committee felt compelled to stress that knowledge or availability
through association falls considerably short of the sort of evidence
that would be necessary to establish criminal responsibility for a conspiracy
in the assassination. It is also considerably short of what a
responsible congressional committee ought to have before it points a
finger in a legislative context.

It must also be asked if it is likely that Oswald was, in fact, used
by an individual such as Marcello or Trafficante in an organized crime
plot. Here, Oswald's character comes into play. As the committee
noted, it is not likely that Oswald was a hired killer; it is likely that
his principal motivation in the assassination was political. Further,
his politics have been shown to have been generally leftwing, as
demonstrated by such aspects of his life as his avowed support of Fidel
Castro. Yet the organized crime figures who had the motive and means
to murder the President must be generally characterized as rightwing
and anti-Castro. Knitting these two contradictory strands together
posed a difficult problem. Either the assassination of President Kennedy
was essentially an apolitical act undertaken by Oswald with full
or partial, knowledge of who he was working for--which would be
hard to believe--or Oswald's organized crime contacts deceived him
about their true identity and motivation, or else organized crime was
not involved.

From an organized crime member's standpoint, the use of an assassin
with political leanings inconsistent with his own would have enhanced
his insulation from identification with the crime. Nevertheless,
it would have made the conspiracy a more difficult undertaking, which
raises questions about the likelihood that such a conspiracy occurred.
The more complicated a plot becomes, the less likely it will work.
Those who rationally set out to kill a king, it may be argued, first
design a plot that will work. The Oswald plot did in fact work, at

Page 180

least for 15 years, but one must ask whether it would have looked
workable 15 years ago. Oswald was an unstable individual. Shortly
before the assassination, for example, he delivered a possibly threatening
note to the Dallas FBI office. With his background, he would have
been an immediate suspect in an assassination in Dallas, and those in
contact with him would have known that. Conspirators could not have
been assured that Oswald or his companion would be killed in Dealey
Plaza; they could not be sure that they could silence them. The plot,
because of Oswald's involvement, would hardly have seemed to be a
low risk undertaking.

The committee weighed other factors in its assessment of Oswald,
his act and possible co-conspirators. It must be acknowledged that he
did, in the end, exhibit a high degree of brutal proficiency in firing
the shot that ended the President's life, and that, as an ex-marine, that
proficiency may have been expected. In the final analysis, it must be
admitted that he accomplished what he set out to do.

Further, while Oswald exhibited a leftist political stance for a
number of years, his activities and associations were by no means
exclusively leftwing. His close friendship with George de Mohrenschildt,
an oilman in Dallas with rightwing connections, is a case in
point. Additionally, questions have been raised about the specific nature
of Oswald's pro-Castro activities. It has been established that on
at least one occasion in 1963, he offered his services for clandestine
paramilitary actions against the Castro regime, though, as has been
suggested, he may have merely been posing as an anti-Castro activist.

That the evidence points to the possibility that Oswald was also
associated in 1963 with David Ferrie, the Marcello operative who was
openly and actively anti-Castro, is troubling, too. Finally, the only
Cuba-related activities that have ever been established at 544 Camp
Street, New Orleans, the address of an office building that Oswald
stamped on some of his Fair Play for Cuba Committee handouts, were
virulently anti-Castro in nature.

Thus, the committee was unable to resolve its doubts about Lee
Harvey Oswald. While the search for additional information in order
to reach an understanding of Oswald's actions has continued for 15
years, and while the committee developed significant new details
about his possible organized crime associations, particularly in New
Orleans, the President's assassin himself remains not fully understood.
The committee developed new information about Oswald and
Ruby, thus altering previous perceptions, but the assassin and the
man who murdered him still appear against a backdrop of unexplained,
or at least not fully explained, occurrences, associations and
motivations.

The scientific evidence available to the committee indicated that it is
probable that more than one person was involved in the President's
murder. That fact compels acceptance. And it demands re-examination
of all that was thought to be true in the past. Further, the committee's
investigation of Oswald and Ruby showed a variety of
relationships that may have matured into an assassination conspiracy.
Neither Oswald nor Ruby turned out to be "loners," as they had been
painted in the 1964 investigation. Nevertheless, the committee frankly
acknowledged that it was unable firmly to identify the other gunman
or the nature and extent of the conspiracy.

Page 181

5. THE SECRET SERVICE, FEDERAL BUREAU
OF INVESTIGATION, AND CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WERE NOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT KENNEDY

As the symbolic leader of the Nation, the President means many
things to many people. His loss is keenly felt; it is a traumatic event.
The President is also more than the symbolic leader of the Nation;
in fact, he holds both political and military power, and his death is
an occasion for its transfer. It was, therefore, understandable that in
foreign. and domestic speculation at the time of President Kennedy's
assassination, there was a suggestion of complicity by agencies of the
U.S. Government. This was one of the principal reasons for the
Warren Commission's creation.

With the publication of the Commission's report, the question was
quieted, if not completely stilled. Nevertheless, critics continued to
imply that the Secret Service, the FBI or the CIA had somehow been
involved in the tragedy in Dallas, and the Warren Commission itself
came to be viewed by some as part of a Government effort to conceal
the truth. With the revelation of the illegal domestic programs of the
FBI and the foreign assassination plots of the CIA by the Senate
Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect
to Intelligence Activities in 1976, speculation was rekindled that
Government itself may have been involved in the President's death.

The committee carefully considered various charges of Government
complicity and coverup. A major portion of its resources
were devoted to examining a variety of allegations directed at the Secret
Service, the FBI, and the CIA as well as the Warren Commission.
As the investigation proceeded, the committee carefully sought evidence
that Government agents had foreknowledge of an assassination,
took advantage of it after the event, or afterwards covered up information
relevant to ascertaining the truth. The committee made a conscientious
effort, for example, to determine if the autopsy materials
were authentic. Had they been tampered with, it would have raised
the most serious of questions. The committee also carefully assessed
the performance of the Secret Service in the planning and execution
of the Dallas trip for signs that it may have actively sought to bring
about the President's death. In addition, the committee carefully
examined the relationship, if any, that Lee Harvey Oswald might have
had with various governmental agencies, particularly the FBI and
CIA. Over the years, there has been speculation that. Oswald might
have been an FBI informant or an agent of the CIA. However Oswald
is seen--patsy or perpetrator--his relationship to the agencies of the
Government was crucial to assessing the question of Government
complicity. If he had had a relationship with one or more of the
agencies, serious issues would be raised. If he had not, the question
would be less pressing.

The committee's investigation of alleged Secret Service complicity
in the assassination was primarily, although not, exclusively, concerned
with two questions. One, did the Secret Service facilitate the shooting
by arranging a motorcade route that went through the heart of downtown
Dallas and past the Texas School Book Depository? Two, did

Page 182

any Secret Service personnel engage in conduct at the site of the
assassination that might indicate complicity in the assassination?
The committee's investigation involved extensive file reviews, interviews,
depositions, and hearings. Former White House personnel, Secret
Service agents, Dallas Police Department officers, Texas public officials
and private citizens who had witnessed the assassination were interviewed
or questioned. In addition, relevant files and documents of
former White House staff, the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police
Department pertaining to the planning of the motorcade route were
reviewed. These included the Secret Service's contingency plans for
the Dallas trip that set forth scheduling, security factors and related
considerations for the motorcade route.

(1) Connally testimony.---Governor John B. Connally testified at
a public hearing that he first heard of the possibility of a Presidential
trip to Texas during his gubernatorial campaign in the spring of 1962,
when Vice President Johnson told him the President wanted to make
a fundraising visit to the State. (1) Connally said he discussed the trip
with the President himself in El Paso, Tex., in June 1963, and in
October he went to the White House to help formulate plans.(2)
According to former White House aides, President Kennedy expressed
a desire to make use of a motorcade during the trip,(3) since he
had found it a useful political instrument during his campaign for the
Presidency. Further, the Dallas luncheon engagement under discussion
involved only a limited speaking appearance, and Kennedy believed
a motorcade would broaden his public exposure. (4)

The decision to use a motorcade was opposed initially by Governor
Connally, who testified that he thought it would fatigue the President.
(5) Frank Erwin, executive secretary of the Texas Democratic Committee,
also opposed the motorcade, but for a different reason. He testified that because of
Adlai Stevenson's ugly confrontation with rightwing extremists only
weeks earlier, he was concerned about the
possibility of a similar embarrassing and potentially difficult situation.(6)
These objections, however, were overruled by the White
House. (7)

(2) Choice of the motorcade route.--Once the motorcade decision
was made, the choice of a route was dependent more upon the selection
of a site for the President's luncheon speech than upon security considerations.
The White House staff at first favored the Dallas Women's
Building near the Dallas County Fairgrounds because its capacity was
greater than that of the alternative site, the Trade Mart, a commercial
center with more limited facilities. (8) The White House staff felt that
the Women's Building would have permitted more of the President's
supporters to attend.

According to Jerry Bruno, a White House advance man, the route
to the Women's Building would have led the motorcade to proceed
along Main Street eastward to the Fairgrounds, which lay to the
southeast of the business district. Access to Main Street on the west
side of Dealey Plaza would have been by a cloverleaf from the expressway.
Using this route, the motorcade would have proceeded at a
relatively high speed (40 to 50 mph) into Dealey Plaza and it
would maintain this speed until it reached the intersection of Main and
Houston Streets where crowds would have gathered. (9)Had it taken

Page 183

this route, the motorcade would not have passed directly in front of
the Texas School Book Depository at the slow (approximately 11
mph) speed that it did enroute to the Trade Mart.

In his testimony, Forrest Sorrels, the special agent-in-charge of the
Dallas Secret Service office in 1963, indicated that the Secret Service
also preferred the Women's Building as the luncheon site because, as
a single story structure, it would have been easier to secure than the
Trade Mart.(10) For political reasons, however, Governor Connally
insisted on the Trade Mart,1(11) and the White House acquiesced to
his wishes so it could avoid a dispute with the Governor, whose assistance
was needed to assure the political success of the trip.(12)

Accordingly, a motorcade to the Trade Mart was planned, and since
the purpose of the motorcade was to permit the President to greet
well-wishers in downtown Dallas, the route that was chosen was west
along Main, right on Houston, then left on Elm Street, proceeding
past the book depository, and through Dealey Plaza. Main Street,
according to Governor Connally, had been the usual route for
ceremonial occasions,(13) such as a procession in 1936 although in
the opposite direction--in honor of President Roosevelt, the last President
to have traveled through Dallas in a motorcade.

While the Secret Service was consulted regarding alternative luncheon
sites, its role in the ultimate decisionmaking process was secondary
to that of Governor Connally and the White House staff. (14)
Similarly, once the actual motorcade route had been set, also without significant
Secret Service input, it was the White House staff, not the Secret
Service, who made the decision to publish the route in Dallas newspapers.
Presidential aides wanted to assure maximum public exposure
for President Kennedy. (15)

The committee found no evidence, therefore, suggesting that the
selection of a motorcade route involved. Secret Service complicity in
a plot to assassinate the President.2(18)

(3) Allegation a Secret Service agent was on the grassy knoll.- After
the assassination, several witnesses stated they had seen or encountered
Secret Service agents behind the stockade fence situated on
the grassy knoll area and in the Texas School Book Depository. (19)
Other witnesses reported Secret Service agents leaving the motorcade
and running to various locations in Dealey Plaza. (20) Warren Commission
critics have alleged that these Secret Service agents either
participated in the assassination itself or were involved in a coverup
of the evidence. (21)

None of the witnesses interviewed by the committee was able
provide further corroborating information concerning their original
statements. The majority, however, indicated that they were mistaken
in their original interpretation of events.(22) Committee interviews
or depositions with 11 of the 16 agents3 who were on duty with the
motorcade and with their supervisors produced evidence that only one

1Connally in effect indicated he would not support the fundraising
visit if the Trade Mart was not the luncheon site.

2The decision not to use a bubble top on the President's
limousine was made by White House staff aides just minutes before the motorcade got underway.
The Secret Service was not involved in the decision. (16) The bubble top, in any event, was
not a bulletproof barrier designed to protect the limousine occupants. It served merely to
shield them from inclement weather. (17)

3One of the agents not interviewed had died. Affidavits were
obtained from the remaining four.

Page 184

agent had left the motorcade at any time prior to the arrival at Parkland
Hospital. This agent, Thomas "Lem" Johns, had been riding in
Vice President Johnson's followup car. In an attempt to reach Johnson's
limousine, he had left the car at the sound of shots and was
momentarily on his own in Dealey Plaza, though he was picked up
almost immediately and taken to Parkland Hospital.(23) In
every instance, therefore, the committee was able to establish
the movement and the activities of Secret Service agents. Except
for Dallas Agent-in-Charge Sorrels, who helped police search the Texas
School Book Depository, no agent was in the vicinity of the stockade
fence or inside the book depository on the day of the assassination.(24)

Significantly, most of the witnesses who made identifications of
Secret Service personnel stated that they had surmised that any plainclothed
individual in the company of uniformed police officers must
have been a Secret Service agent. (25) Because the Dallas Police Department
had numerous plainclothes detectives on duty in the Dealey
Plaza area,(26) the committee considered it possible that they were
mistaken for Secret Service agents.

One witness who did not base his Secret Service agent identification
merely upon observing a plainclothesman in the presence of uniformed
police officers was Dallas police officer Joseph M. Smith. Smith, who
had been riding as a motorcycle escort in the motorcade, ran up the
grassy knoll immediately after the shooting occurred. He testified to
the Warren Commission that at that time he encountered a man who
stated that he was a Secret Service agent and offered supporting credentials.
Smith indicated that he did not examine these credentials
closely, and he then proceeded to search the area unsuccessfully for
suspicious individuals. (27)

The committee made an effort to identify the person who talked to
Patrolman Smith. FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty stated that
Frank Ellsworth, then an agent for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
Bureau of the Treasury Department, had indicated that he had
been in the grassy knoll area and for some reason had identified himself
to someone as a Secret Service agent. (28) The committee deposed
Ellsworth, who denied Hosty's allegation. (29)

The committee did obtain evidence that military intelligence personnel
may have identified themselves as Secret Service agents or that
they might have been misidentified as such. Robert E. Jones, a retired
Army lieutenant colonel who in 1963 was commanding officer of the
military intelligence region that encompassed Texas, told the committee
that from 8 to 12 military intelligence personnel in plainclothes
were assigned to Dallas to provide supplemental security for
the President's visit. He indicated that these agents had identification
credentials and, if questioned, would most likely have stated that they
were on detail to the Secret Service. (30)

The committee sought to identify these agents so that they could
be questioned. The Department of Defense, however, reported that a
search of its files showed "no records ...indicating any Department
of Defense Protective Services in Dallas."(31) The committee
was unable to resolve the contradiction.

(4) Conclusion.--Based on its entire investigation, the committee
found no evidence of Secret Service complicity in the assassination.

In the weeks that followed the assassination, it was alleged in several
newspaper articles that Lee Harvey Oswald had been an FBI
informant. Consequently, the Warren Commission expended considerable
effort addressing the question. Testimony was taken from FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover, Assistant to the Director Alan H. Belmont,
and FBI Special Agents John W. Fain, John L. Quigley and James P.
Hosty, Jr. (1) "All declared, in substance, that Oswald was not an informant
or agent of the FBI, and that he did not act in any other
capacity for the FBI, and that no attempt was made to recruit him in
any capacity." In addition, "Director Hoover and each Bureau agent,
who according to the FBI would have been responsible for or aware
of any attempt to recruit Oswald ...provided the Commission with
sworn affidavits to this effect."1 This testimony was corroborated by
the Warren Commission's independent review of FBI files. (3)

Nevertheless, the allegation that Oswald was associated in some
capacity with the FBI persisted. (4) There are three main reasons for
this that may be traced to actions by the Bureau.

First, Oswald's address book contained the name, address, telephone
number and automobile license plate number of Special Agent
James P. Hoary. That entry has been a source of controversy, especially
since this information was not contained in an FBI report to
the Warren Commission in December 1963, one that purportedly contained
the contents of the address book.

Second, based on FBI contacts with Oswald in Fort Worth in 1962
and New Orleans and Dallas in 1963, rumors that he was an informant
for the Bureau continued to circulate.

Third, shortly after the assassination, Dallas FBI agent Hosty destroyed
a note that had been delivered to his office allegedly by Oswald
shortly before the assassination. When that conduct was finally made
public in 1975 it aroused great suspicions, especially since it had not
been previously revealed, even to the Warren Commission. (5)

The committee attempted to investigate each of the alleged links
between Oswald and the FBI. It conducted extensive file reviews, interviews,
depositions, and hearings. Testimony was taken from present
and former FBI officials and employees as well as from private citizens
claiming to have relevant information. On occasion, formal explanations
were sought directly from the FBI. Even though the testimony
of two special agents of the FBI appeared to be seriously lacking
credibility on two of the major issues (the destruction of the Oswald
note and the omission of Hosty's name from a report purporting to
contain a list of the entries in Oswald's notebook), the results of the
committee's investigation were consistent with the conclusions reached
by the Warren Commission. The committee found no credible evidence
that Oswald was an FBI informant.

(1) Early rumors that Oswald was an informant--Shortly after the
assassination of President Kennedy, rumors that Oswald had been an

1Nine of the 10 affidavits executed by FBI agents denying
that Oswald had been an informant were revised before the FBI submitted them to the Warren
Commission. It had been alleged that these affidavits may have been materially altered.
The committee found that none of the affidavits had been materially altered before delivery to
the Warren Commission. The essential difference between the preliminary drafts and the final
affidavits was that the drafts were witnessed by fellow FBI agents, whereas the final affidavits
were witnessed by notaries public. In a few instances, minor changes of words of phrases were
made, although none affected substance. (2)

Page 186

FBI informant began to circulate. This allegation was discussed in
articles by Joseph C. Goulden, Alonzo Hudkins, and Harold Feldman,
among others. (6) The committee's review of these articles indicated
that they set forth the rumors and speculation concerning the informant
issue, but they offered no direct evidence supporting the allegation.
Moreover, Hudkins admitted to the committee that his involvement with
the issue began when he and another newsman discussed by telephone
a mythical FBI payroll number for Oswald in order to test
their suspicion that they were under FBI surveillance. Hudkins told
the committee that he was subsequently contacted by the FBI and
asked what he knew about Oswald's alleged informant status, and that
shortly afterward a newspaper article appeared in which the FBI
denied any relationship with Oswald. (7) Neither Hudkins nor
Goulden was able to give the committee any additional information
that would substantiate the informant allegation. (8) The committee
was unable to locate Feldman.

(2) The Hosty entry in Oswald's address book.-- After the assassination,
Dallas police found Oswald's address book among his possessions
and turned it over to the FBI in Dallas. It contained FBI
Special Agent Hosty's name, address, telephone number and car
license plate number.(9) Dallas FBI agents recorded some of the
entries in the address book and, on December 23, 1963, sent a report to
the Warren Commission. This report, however, did not include the
Hosty entry.2(10)

The committee's review of the December 23 report established in
likelihood that page 25 of that document, the page that logically
would have contained the Hosty entry had it been properly included,3
had been retyped. The page was numbered in the upper left-hand
corner, whereas all other pages of the report--save page 1, the retyping
of which had been clearly recorded--were numbered at the bottom
center. In addition, the horizontal margins of page 25 were unusually
wide.

The former special agent who had coordinated the FBI's Dallas investigation
and had submitted the December 23, 1963, report, testified
in a committee executive session that he had ordered the contents of
Oswald's notebook transcribed for the purpose of indicating any
investigative leads. (11) The agent acknowledged that page 25 of the
report would have contained the Hosty entry had it been included,
and that both the numbering of that page and its unusually wide
horizontal margins indicated it had been retyped.(12)
Nevertheless, he stated that the page had not been retyped to mislead anyone,
and indicated that the only reason the Hosty entry had been omitted from
his report was because the original office memorandum setting out
investigative leads generated from Oswald's address book had failed to
include it. (13)

A second special agent, the one who had prepared the original office
memorandum that was incorporated into the December 23, 1963, re-

2On January 25, 1964, the FBI independently questioned the Dallas
office concerning the omission and later sent to the Warren Commission a report, dated February 11,
1964, that did include the Hosty entry. In addition, in a letter dated January 27, 1964, the
FBI informed the Commission of the inclusion of the Hosty data in Oswald's address book.

3This determination was based on a comparison of the other
entries from Oswald's address book that did appear on page 25.

Page 187

port, testified that the Hosty entry had not been included because it
was not considered to be of significance as an investigative lead. (14)
This agent contended it had already been known that Hosty had called
at the home of Ruth and Michael Paine looking for Oswald prior to
the assassination, so the entry of his name and related data in Oswald's
book would not have been of potential evidentiary value. (15)

The committee did not accept the explanation that the Hosty entry
was omitted from the report because it was not of lead significance,
since the FBI's December 23, 1963, report included other entries from
Oswald's address book that clearly had no legal significance at the
time. For example, by December 23, it was generally known that the
Oswalds had been living at the Paine home, yet the Ruth Paine address
book entry was included in the report. (16) Similarly, a Robert
W. Oswald entry that referred to Oswald's brother would not have
been significant as a lead at that time. (17) Numerous other examples
could be given. (18) Moreover, the agent who prepared the memorandum
failed to include in it several entries that he acknowledged could
not automatically be dismissed as lacking in lead significance
(e.g., numbers and letters of the alphabet whose meaning was not then
known). (19)

Finally, in the December 23 report that was given to the Warren
Commission, the FBI did not indicate that the report of the address
book's contents had been limited to those items of lead
significance.4(20)

When the committee apprised the FBI of the testimony of the two
agents (first, the agent who coordinated the investigation; second, the
one who prepared the memorandum that was incorporated in the
December 23 report), the Bureau initiated its own inquiry. It produced
an FBI airtel (an interoffice telegram) dated December 11,
1963, that seemed to verify that the second agent's original instructions
were to set out investigative leads, rather than to transcribe the
complete contents of the address book. (21) The FBI investigation also
led to the discovery of a "tickler" copy of the December 23 report that
did contain the Hosty entry on page 25. 5(22) The two agents were
then reinterviewed by FBI investigators.

Based on his review and analysis of FBI documents, the second
agent substantially revised the testimony he had given the committee.
He told the Bureau investigators that since his assignment was to review
the information contained in Oswald's address book and to set
out appropriate leads where necessary, he initially reproduced by
dictation those entries in the address book that he thought might require
investigative action. He recalled that he was vitally concerned
with accuracy; consequently, he initially included the Hosty entry.
Nevertheless, he explained that when he later had time to determine
what investigative work remained to be done with regard to the address
book he decided that it was not necessary to include the Hosty
data in his second dictation of an investigative "lead sheet." (23)

4The agent who prepared the memorandum testified he did
not know it would be incorporated in other reports and sent to the Warren Commission. The
agent who coordinated the investigation was the one who actually prepared the report for
transmission to the Warren Commission.

5The term "tickler" refers to a copy of a report
that is placed in a file for the purpose of reminding the file keeper of further action that must
be taken with respect to the subject of the report.

Page 188

A December 8, 1977, report of the FBI interview with the second
agent records his recollection in further detail:

He specifically recalls that by the time of the second dictation,
he had had the opportunity to check on the Hosty entry
to the extent that he was aware of Hosty's visits to the Paine
residence and that the address book entry reflected the
Dallas FBI Field Office telephone number and the license number of
the Government vehicle assigned to Hosty.
Upon learning these facts, he was convinced that the Hosty
entry was not required in a "lead sheet" since it did not require
further investigative attention. In addition, he was
unofficially aware, through office conversations, that Hosty
was being criticized not only in the media, but also by the
FBI hierarchy, for his conduct of the Oswald case. Since he
realized that a "lead sheet" would receive wide dissemination
in the Dallas Field Office, he was doubly convinced that the
Hosty data should not be included in the "lead sheet"--
Hosty's connection to the Oswald case was officially known
and had been explained in previous reports, and, furthermore,
he did not wish to cause Hosty any unnecessary unpleasantness
or exposure. At that time he never considered
that Hosty might have been a target of Lee Harvey Oswald,
and, further, any contention that Hosty was involved in an
assassination conspiracy would have been so preposterous
that he would not even have thought of it. He, therefore, did
not dictate the Hosty data and thereby excluded it from the
product of his second dictation which was, in effect, an office
memorandum to be used only as a "lead worksheet." He also
never considered that the "lead sheet" might have been converted
to a report insert and disseminated outside the FBI. Had he known it
would be, he would have considered that the
memorandum or "lead sheet" should have reflected all the
entries in the address book, to include Hosty's name, since to
do otherwise would not have been an accurate reporting of
the entire contents of the address book.
He could not recall specifically what may have occasioned
the redoing of page 25 after the second dictation, but it is
possible that it became necessary because either he or someone
else noticed that the "Ministry of Finances of the
U.S.S.R." information should have been attributed to the Fame
page in the address book as was the "Katya Ford" and "Declan
Ford" information. This error was made by him during
his first dictation and may have persisted through the second
dictation, thereby necessitating an additional change which
caused page 25, to be numbered as it appears in the December 23, 1963, report.
[The second agent] concluded by stating that his recall
of these events was triggered only by a review and discussion
of all the pertinent documents retrieved. Until viewing the
tickler version of the address book contents which reproduced
the entries more identically than the "lead sheet" version
with its editorializations, he had no specific recall with regard
to his first dictation. (24)

Page 189

When the first agent was reinterviewed by the FBI, he was unable
to explain the origin of the headquarters tickler copy. In addition,
after reviewing the December 11, 1963, FBI headquarters airtel
to the Dallas office, he indicated that, contrary to his earlier recollection,
he never instructed the second agent to transcribe the address book.
That order had apparently been issued by another special agent. (25)

Bureau interviews with the former special-agent-in-charge of the
Dallas office in 1963 and six other special agents who were involved
in the assassination investigation generated no additional information
concerning how the tickler copy of the December 23, 1963, report on
the contents of the address book came to reside in FBI headquarters.
Nor did they shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the
omission of the Hosty entry from the copy of the report that was sent
to the Warren Commission. Laboratory tests for fingerprints were
inconclusive. (26) They did not indicate who had worked on the tickler
copy of the December 23 report. Laboratory tests did determine, however,
that the typewriter used to prepare page 25 of the December 23
report had also been used to prepare all but 10 pages of the report.

The committee also sought testimony from Special Agent Hosty
concerning the circumstances by which his name was entered in Oswald's
notebook and why this particular entry might have been omitted
from the December 23, 1963, report. Hosty stated that he had been
assigned to internal security cases on both Lee Harvey Oswald and his
wife Marina. (27) He recalled that he spoke briefly to Marina Oswald
twice during the first week of November 1963 and that he had had no
other contacts with her. (28) On this first occasion, he had given Ruth
Paine, with whom Marina Oswald was residing, his name and telephone
number and had told her to call him if she had any information
on Oswald to give him.(29) It was Hosty's belief that Ruth Paine
probably gave this information to Oswald. Hosty added that Oswald
could have obtained the address of the Dallas FBI office from the front
page of any Dallas telephone book. (30) Hosty believed that during his
second visit to the residence, while he was talking to Ruth Paine,
Marina Oswald went outside and copied his license plate number.
(31) He suggested that Oswald may have wanted this data so he could
write his self-serving letter of protest to the Soviet Embassy in Washington.(32)
In addition, he stated that it is possible that Oswald
wanted this information so that he could complain to the FBI in
Dallas. (33) Hosty indicated that he could think of no good reason for
withholding the references to him in Oswald's address book from the
report on the address book that was sent to the Warren Commission, as
this information was already well-known at the Dallas Police Department.(34)
The committee also learned that Hosty dictated two
memoranda in December 1963 that included the fact that his name
and address were in Oswald's address book. In addition, FBI headquarters
was aware of the Hosty entry in the address book; it had
been made public by the media, and the FBI had advised the Warren
Commission of it on January 27, 1964.

Based on all this evidence, the committee concluded that there was
no plan by the FBI to withhold the Hosty entry in Oswald's address
book for sinister reasons. This conclusion was based on several factors,

Page 190

the most important of which was the discovery of the tickler copy of
the December 23, 1963 report.6

The committee considered the fact, on the other hand, that information
about the entry was withheld. One explanation might be that it
was unintentional, although the evidence was also consistent with an
explanation that one or more Dallas FBI agents sought to protect
Hosty from personal embarrassment by trying--ineffectually, as it
turned out to exclude his name from the reporting. The committee,
though it deemed the incident regrettable, found it to be trivial in the
context of the entire investigation.

(3) FBI contacts with Oswald (Fort Worth, 1962).--Oswald was
interviewed twice by FBI agents in Fort Worth in 1962 shortly after
his return from the Soviet Union. (35) Special Agent Fain, who had
been assigned the Oswald internal security case in Fort Worth, and
Special Agent Burnett Tom Carter conducted the initial Oswald interview
at the Fort Worth FBI office on June 26, 1962. In his report of this
interview, Fain described Oswald as cold, arrogant and uncooperative.
He also reported that when asked if he would be willing to submit
to a polygraph examination, Oswald refused without giving a reason.(36)

On August 16, 1962, Fain and Special Agent Arnold J. Brown reinterviewed
Oswald, this time in Fain's automobile near Oswald's
Fort Worth residence. (37) The fact that the interview was conducted
in Fain's car has been cited as an indication that Oswald was being
developed as an informant.

Fain, Carter, and Brown submitted affidavits to the Warren Commission
asserting Oswald was not an informant.(38) All three were
interviewed by the committee, and they affirmed their previous
positions.

Fain told the committee that in the first encounter, Oswald displayed
a bad attitude and gave incomplete answers (39) while Carter
remembered Oswald as arrogant, uncooperative, and evasive. (40) Fain
said the second contact was necessitated by Oswald's bad attitude and
incomplete answers in the first interview. In the second interview, Fain
explained, Oswald invited him and Brown into his home, but decided
to conduct the interview in his car so not to upset or frighten
Oswald's wife.(41) Brown told the committee that his memory was
hazy, but he did recall that he and Fain met Oswald as he was returning
from work and that they interviewed him in or near Fain's car,
possibly for the sake of convenience. (42)

The committee found the statements of these three FBI agents credible.
They had legitimate reasons for contacting Oswald because his
background suggested he might be a threat to the internal security of
the United States. They corroborated each other's accounts of the two
interviews of Oswald, and their statements were entirely consistent
with reports written shortly after these interviews occurred. Given
Oswald's documented unwillingness to cooperate, there was little reason
to believe that he would have been considered by these agents for
use as an informant.

6The leadership of the FBI as of 1978, was deserving of
credit, in the committee's estimate, for its efforts to find the truth about the Hosty entry in
Oswald's address book. The committee doubted that the tickler copy of the December 23
memorandum would have been found if FBI officials had not been interested in resolving the
issue.

Page 191

(4) FBI contacts with Oswald (New Orleans, 1963).--The committee
interviewed the special agent in charge of the FBI office in New
Orleans in 1963 and three special agents who handled the Oswald case
in that city, and it found their statements that Oswald had not been
an FBI informant to be credible.

Harry Maynor, the special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI
office in 1963, explained that if Oswald had been an FBI informant
in New Orleans, he would have known about it because of his supervisory
position; if Oswald had been paid for any information,
would have approved the payments. Maynor noted that he had submitted
an affidavit to the Warren Commission in which he had stated
that no effort was made to develop Oswald as an informant.(43)

Similarly, former Special Agent Milton Kaack, who had been
assigned the FBI security investigation of Oswald, told the committee
that Oswald had never been an FBI informant. Kaack explained that
if Oswald had been an FBI informant, he would have known about
it by virtue of having been assigned the internal security case on
him.7(44)

The statements of Maynor, Kaack, and two other former FBI employees
were considered in the context of allegations made by three
witnesses, William S. Walter, Orest Pena, and Adrian Alba.

On August 9, 1963, Oswald was arrested in New Orleans for disturbing
the peace after he had gotten into a fight with anti-Castro
Cubans while distributing Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets. FBI
Special Agent John L. Quigley interviewed Oswald the following day
in a New Orleans jail. (45) Quigley's willingness to meet with Oswald
in jail has been cited as evidence that Oswald was an FBI informant.
Moreover, in connection with this incident, William S. Walter, who
was an FBI security clerk in New Orleans in 1963, told the committee
that he had been on duty on the day this interview occurred. In response
to Quigley's request for a file check on Oswald, he had determined
that the New Orleans FBI office maintained both a security file
and an informant file on Oswald.

In a committee interview, Quigley, who had submitted an affidavit
to the Warren Commission asserting that, Oswald had not been an
FBI informant, (47) reaffirmed his position. He explained that he interviewed
Oswald at Oswald's request, and that he then checked the
file indices at the New Orleans office and found that Oswald was the
subject of a security investigation assigned to Special Agent Kaack.
He advised that the indices check provided no indication that Oswald
had ever been an FBI informant. He added that if Oswald had been
an informant, he would have known about it by virtue of this indices
search. (48)

The committee could find no independent basis for verifying Walter's
testimony about an Oswald informant file, but another allegation
made by him, unrelated to the informant issue, led the committee to
reject his testimony in its entirety. In a committee deposition, Walter
stated that on November 17, 1963, while he was on night duty as an
FBI security clerk, he received a teletype from FBI headquarters
warning of a possible assassination attempt against President Ken-

7The committee asked Kaack why he had not submitted an affidavit
to this effect to the Warren Commission. In response, Kaack indicated that this had not
been done because no one had requested it.

Page 192

nedy during the forthcoming trip to Dallas on November 22 or 23,
1963. (49) Walter recalled that the teletype was addressed to all special
agents in charge of FBI field offices and that it instructed them to
contact criminal, racial and hate group informants in order to determine
whether there was any basis for the threat.(50) Walter contended
that this teletype was removed from the New Orleans FBI
office files soon after the Kennedy assassination. (51)

Walter admitted that he did not publicly allege the existence of
this telephone until 1968 (52) At that time, the FBI instituted an investigation
that failed to find any corroboration for Walter's story.
According to the Bureau, no record of a teletype or any other kind
of communication reporting that there would be an attempt to assassinate
President Kennedy in Texas could be found. Over 50 FBI employees
of the New Orleans FBI office were interviewed by the Bureau,
and none of them stated that they had any knowledge of any such
teletype. (53) In 1975, the Bureau reinvestigated the teletype allegation
after Walter claimed he had retained a replica of the teletype and that
it had been sent to all FBI field offices. The FBI examined the text of
the alleged replica and determined that it varied in format and wording from
the standard. The Bureau also reported that searches at each
of its 59 field offices yielded no evidence indicating the existence of
such a teletype. (54)

Walter advised the committee that he did not know of anyone who
could definitely substantiate his teletype allegation, although he suggested
that his former wife, Sharon Covert, who also had worked for
the FBI in New Orleans, might be able to do so. (55) Sharon Covert,
however, advised the committee that she could not support any of
Walter's allegations against the FBI and that Walter had never mentioned
his allegations to her during their marriage. (56)

New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Maynor also denied that he
had been contacted by Walter in regard to an assassination threat. (57)

More fundamentally, however, the committee was led to distrust
Walter's account of the assassination teletype because of his claim
that it had been addressed to the special agents in charge of every FBI
field office. The committee found it difficult to believe that such a
message could have been sent without someone 15 years later--a special
agent in charge or an employee who might have seen the teletype--
coming forward in support of Walter's claim. The committee declined
to believe that that many employees of the FBI would have remained
silent for such a long time. Instead, the committee was led to question
Walter's credibility. The committee concluded that Walter's allegations
were unfounded.

Orest Pena, a bar owner in New Orleans, testified that during the
early 1960's he was an FBI informant who reported to Special Agent
Warren D. deBrueys.(58) He told the committee that on several occasions
he saw Oswald in the company of deBrueys and other Government
agents in a restaurant and that he believed Oswald and deBrueys
knew each other very well.8 Finally, Pena alleged that Special Agent

8In this regard, William Walter testified that after the assassination
of President Kennedy he found a single file pertaining to Oswald in SAC Harry G.
Maynor's locked file cabinet. Walter stated that he did not recall the title of the file,
and acknowledged that it may not have been an informant file, but he remembered that
the name of FBI Special Agent Warren D. deBrueys appeared on the file jacket. As noted,
the committee did not find Walter to be a credible witness.

Page 193

deBrueys was "transferred" to Dallas at the same time Oswald was
"transferred" there. He added that he was "very, very, very sure" that
deBrueys went to Dallas before the assassination of President Kennedy. (59)

Pena maintained that a few days before he went to testify before
the Warren Commission, deBrueys threatened him physically and warned
him not to make any accusations against him. Pena also stated that
Warren Commission staff counsel Wesley J. Liebeler did not cooperate
with him and did not let him talk freely, so he decided to "keep [his]
mouth shut." (60)

In testimony before the committee, deBrueys denied that Oswald
was his informant, that he had ever met Oswald, or that he had ever
knowingly talked to him by telephone.(61) He acknowledged that he
did use Pena informally as an occasional source of information because
of his position as a bar owner in New Orleans, but he declined
to characterize Pena as an informant because of the absence of any
systematic reporting relationship. (62) He also denied having threatened
Pena prior to Pena's Warren Commission testimony. (63) Finally,
deBrueys testified that he was transferred to Dallas in 1963, but that
this was the result of a temporary assignment to assist in the assassination
investigation. (64) The transfer did not coincide with Oswald's
move from New Orleans to the Dallas area.9

FBI files served to corroborate relevant aspects of deBrueys' testimony.
DeBrueys' personal file indicates that the only time he was transferred
to Dallas was to work on the assassination investigation,
and that he was in Dallas from November 23, 1963, until January 24,
1964. In addition, there is no Bureau record of Pena ever having served
as an informant. This, too, supported deBrueys' testimony that Pena
was never used on any systematic basis as a source of information.

Pena, moreover, was unable to explain adequately why he waited
until 1975 to make this allegation, and he declined to testify specifically
that Oswald was, in fact, an FBI informant. Pena's responses to
committee questions on the informant issue and others were frequently
evasive. (65) The committee found, therefore, that he was not a credible witness.

Adrian Alba testified before the committee that he was an employee
and part owner of the Crescent City Garage in New Orleans and that
in the summer of 1963 he had become acquainted with Oswald, who
worked next door at the Reily Coffee Co. (66) He related that one day
an FBI agent entered his garage and requested to use one of the Secret
Service cars garaged there. The FBI agent showed his credentials,
and Alba allowed him to take a Secret Service car, a dark green Studebaker.
Later that day or the next day, Alba observed the FBI agent
in the car handing a white envelope to Oswald in front of the Reily
Coffee Co, There was no exchange of words. Oswald, in a bent position,
turned away from the car window and held the envelope close

9The committee also asked deBrueys why he did not submit an
affidavit to the Warren Commission on the informant issue. deBrueys testified that he was surprised
not to have been called upon to submit an affidavit to the Warren Commission. He believed
that he had signed an affidavit on the informant issue at Bureau headquarters within the past few years,
but no longer recalled the specifics of this action. The Bureau informed the committee that,
pursuant to regulations, deBrueys had submitted to the U.S. Attorney General a written synopsis
of his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In this synopsis, deBrueys
stated that he had denied under oath that Oswald was his informant or that he had ever knowingly
spoken to Oswald.

Page 194

to his chest as he walked toward the Reily Coffee Co. Alba believed
that he observed a similar transaction a day or so later as he was returning
from lunch, but on this occasion he was farther away and
failed to see what was handed to Oswald. Alba did not recall when
the Secret Service car was returned or by whom. He never questioned
Oswald about these incidents. (67)

Alba did not relate his account of the transactions between Oswald
and the FBI agent when he testified before the Warren Commission.
(68). He told the committee in 1978 that he first remembered these
incidents in 1970, when his memory was triggered by a television
commercial showing a merchant running to and from a taxi to assist
a customer. (69)

The committee examined Alba's records for possible corroboration.
These records indicated that in 1963 several Secret Service agents had
signed out two Studebakers, a Ford and a Chevrolet at various times,
but the records did not indicate that any FBI agents had signed out
any of these cars. (70)

The committee regarded Alba's testimony, at least on this point, to
be of doubtful reliability and outweighed by the evidence provided by
the former FBI personnel stationed in New Orleans.

(5) FBI contacts with Oswald (Dallas, 1963).--According to a
1964 FBI memorandum, an FBI agent, later identified as Will Hayden
Griffin of the Dallas field office, allegedly stated in 1964 that Oswald
was definitely an FBI informant and that FBI files in Washington
would prove that fact.(71) Griffin, however, advised the committee
that he had never made such an allegation. Moreover, in 1964, he had
executed an affidavit specifically denying this allegation. (72) Griffin's
position is consistent with that of other Dallas FBI personnel.

J. Gordon Shanklin, who was special-agent-in-charge of the Dallas
FBI office in 1963, submitted an affidavit to the Warren Commission
in which he denied that Oswald was an FBI informant.(73) In a
committee interview, he again stated that Oswald was never an informant
for the FBI in Dallas and he added he had not even heard of
Oswald prior to President Kennedy's assassination. (74)

Special Agent James P. Hosty, Jr., testified that Oswald had not
been an FBI informant. (75) Hosty had submitted an affidavit to this
effect to the Warren Commission.10 Hosty told the committee that he
had never interviewed Oswald before the assassination of President
Kennedy. From his testimony, it appeared that his only contacts with
Oswald had been indirect, in the form of two occasions that he had
conversed with Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine. He added that Oswald
was neither an informant for Special Agent Fain in Fort Worth nor
an informant for any FBI agent in New Orleans. Had Oswald been
an informant in either case, Hosty insisted he would have known about
it by virtue of having been assigned the internal security case on
Oswald in Dallas. (76)

Hosty also addressed the purported Griffin allegation. He testified
to the committee that Griffin knew that Jack Ruby had been a poten-

10In addition to Hosty and Shanklin, several other FBI
agents in Dallas executed affidavits for the Warren Commission denying that Oswald was an
informant: Assistant Special-Agent-in-Charge Kyle G. Clark, former Special-Agent-in-Charge
Curtis O. Lynum, and Special Agent Kenneth C. Howe.

Page 195

tial criminal informant for the FBI in Dallas. He suggested that
someone could have heard Griffin talking about Ruby's contacts with
the FBI and might then have repeated the story with the mistaken
assertion that Griffin was talking about Oswald. (77)

In support of Hosty's explanation, Shanklin stated to the committee
that the Dallas office did send the potential criminal informant file
on Ruby to FBI headquarters in Washington after the Kennedy
assassination. He added that he did not know whether this file was
sent to the Warren Commission. 11(78) Griffin told the committee in a
second interview that soon after the Kennedy assassination he learned
that the FBI in Dallas had approached Ruby in order to obtain information
from him. He advised that, although his recollection was
unclear, he might have seen an FBI informant file on Ruby and then
may have talked to persons outside the Bureau about the FBI's contacts
with Ruby.

(6) The destruction of Oswald's note.--Approximately 2 or 3
weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald allegedly
delivered a note addressed to Hosty at the FBI office in
Dallas. (80) The varying accounts of the note's contents suggest that it was
threatening or complaining in tone, ordering Hosty to stop bothering
Oswald's wife.(81) Several hours after Oswald was murdered by
Jack Ruby, Hosty, according to his own admission, destroyed the note
after having been instructed to do so by J. Gordon Shanklin, the
special-agent-in-charge of the Dallas FBI office. (82) Shanklin denied
that he knew anything about the note until a reporter asked him about
it in 1975. (83) Between 1963 and 1975, the existence of the note and
its destruction were kept secret by the Dallas FBI Office.

In his committee testimony, Hosty stated that the note, according
to his memory, did not contain Oswald's name and that he first determined
that the note might have been from Oswald on the day of the
assassination of President Kennedy. Hosty explained that soon after
Oswald's arrest, he was instructed to sit in on the interrogation of
Oswald at the Dallas Police Department, and that when he identified
himself to Oswald, Oswald became upset and stated that Hosty had
been bothering his wife, Marina. Hosty suggested that Special-Agent-in-Charge
Shanklin, who was told by another FBI agent about
Oswald's reaction to Hosty, probably made the same connection between
Oswald and the anonymous note. Hosty advised that he was
surprised that Shanklin wanted him to destroy the note because the
note's contents were not particularly significant.

Hosty recalled that the note was complaining in tone, but that it
contained no threats and did not suggest that Oswald was prone to
violence. Hosty stated that he destroyed the note because Shanklin,
his superior, ordered him to do so. When asked what motivation
Oswald might have had for writing this note, Hosty suggested that
Oswald might have wanted to prevent Hosty from contacting his wife
because he was afraid that she would tell Hosty about Oswald's trip
to Mexico in the fall of 1963 and of his attempt to shoot Gen. Edwin
Walker in the spring of 1963. (85)

11The committee found no evidence that this file was ever
sent to the Warren Commission, although details of the association were furnished by the Commission
by letter.

Page 196

The committee regarded the incident of the note as a serious impeachment
of Shanklin's and Hosty's credibility. It noted, however,
that the note, if it contained threats in response to FBI contacts
with Oswald's wife, would have been evidence tending to negate an
informant relationship. The committee noted further the speculative
nature of its findings about the note incident. Because the note had
been destroyed, it was not possible to establish with confidence what its contents were.

(7) Conclusion--In summary, although there have been many allegations
of an Oswald-FBI informant relationship, there was no
credible evidence that Oswald was ever an informant for the Bureau.
Absent a relationship between Oswald and the FBI, grounds for suspicions of FBI complicity in the assassination become remote.

In 1964, the CIA advised the Warren Commission that the Agency
had never had a relationship of any kind with Lee Harvey Oswald.
Testifying before the Commission, CIA Director John A. McCone indicated that:

Oswald was not an agent, employee, or informant of the
Central Intelligence Agency. The Agency never contacted
him, interviewed him, talked with him, or solicited any
reports or information from him, or communicated with him
directly or in any other manner ...Oswald was never
associated or connected directly or indirectly in any way
whatsoever with the Agency. (1)

McCone's testimony was corroborated by Deputy Director Richard
M. Helms. (2) The record reflects that once these assurances had been
received, no further efforts were made by the Warren Commission to
pursue the matter.

Recognizing the special difficulty in investigating a clandestine
agency, the committee sought to resolve the issue of Oswald's alleged
association with the CIA by conducting an inquiry that went beyond
taking statements from two of the Agency's most senior officials. The
more analytical approach used by the committee consisted of a series
of steps:

First, an effort was made to identify circumstances in Oswald's
life or in the way his case was handled by the CIA that possibly
suggested an intelligence association.
Then, the committee undertook an intensive review of the pertinent
files, including the CIA's 144-volume Oswald file and hundreds
of others from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense
and other agencies.
Based on these file reviews, a series of interviews, depositions
and executive session hearings was conducted with both Agency
and non-Agency witnesses. The contacts with present and former
CIA personnel covered a broad range of individuals, including
staff and division chiefs, Clandestine case officers, area desk officers,
research analysts, secretaries and clerical assistants. In total, more

1For a brief history of the CIA and description of its organizational
structure, see Section I D 4 infra.

Page 197

than 125 persons, including at least 50 present and former CIA
employees, were questioned.2

The results of this investigation confirmed the Warren Commission
testimony of McCone and Helms. There was no indication in Oswald's
CIA file that he had ever had contact with the Agency. Finally, taken
in their entirety, the items of circumstantial evidence that the committee
had selected for investigation as possibly indicative of an intelligence
association did not support the allegation that Oswald had
an intelligence agency relationship.

This finding, however, must be placed in context, for the institutional
characteristics--in terms of the Agency's strict compartmentalization
and the complexity of its enormous filing system--that are designed
to prevent penetration by foreign powers have the simultaneous
effect of making congressional inquiry difficult. For example,
personnel testified to the committee that a review of Agency files would
not always indicate whether an individual was affiliated with the
Agency in any capacity. (3) Nor was there always an independent
means of verifying that all materials requested from the Agency had,
in fact, been provided. Accordingly, any finding that is essentially
negative in nature--such as that Lee Harvey Oswald was neither
associated with the CIA in any way, nor ever in contact with that
institution--should explicitly acknowledge the possibility of oversight.

To the extent possible, however, the committee's investigation was
designed to overcome the Agency's security-oriented institutional obstacles
that potentially impede effective scrutiny of the CIA. The vast
majority of CIA files made available to the committee were reviewed
in undeleted form.(4) These files were evaluated both for their substantive
content and for any potential procedural irregularities suggestive
of possible editing or tampering. After review, the files were used
as the basis for examination and cross-examination of present and
former Agency employees. Each of the present and former Agency
employees contacted by the committee was released from his secrecy
oath by the CIA insofar as questions relevant to the committee's legislative
mandate were concerned. Because of the number of Agency
personnel who were interrogated,(5) it is highly probable that
significant inconsistencies between the files and witnesses' responses
would have been discovered by the committee.

During the course of its investigation, the committee was given access
by the CIA to information based on sensitive sources and methods
that are protected by law from unauthorized disclosure. The committee
noted that in some circumstances disclosure of such information
in detail would necessarily reveal the sensitive sources and methods by
which it was acquired. With respect to each item of such information,
the committee carefully weighed the possible advancement of public
understanding that might accrue from disclosure of the details of the
information against the possible harm that might be done to the national
interests and the dangers that might result to individuals. To

2The committee also attempted to identify CIA employees who may
have had the motive, means and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy. In this regard,
no useful information was generated from selected file reviews. An effort was also made to locate
a man identified as Maurice Bishop who was said to have been a CIA officer who had been seen in
the company of Lee Harvey Oswald. The effort to find "Bishop" was likewise unsuccessful.

Page 198

the extent required by the balancing process, sections of this report
were written in a somewhat conclusionary manner in order to continue
the protection of such classified information.

(1) CIA personnel in the Soviet Russia Division.3--Since Oswald
spent time in the Soviet Union, a subject of special attention by the
committee was the Russia-related activities of the CIA. In addition to
obtaining testimony from former Directors McCone and Helms, the
committee interviewed the chiefs of the Soviet Russia Division from
1959 to 1963. In each case, the committee received a categorical denial
of any association of the CIA with Oswald. (6)

To investigate this matter further, the committee interviewed the
persons who had been chiefs or deputy chiefs during 1959-62 of the
three units within the Soviet Russia Division that were responsible
respectively for clandestine activities, research in support of clandestine
activities, and the American visitors program. 4 The heads of
the clandestine activity section stated that during this period the CIA
had few operatives in the Soviet Union and that Oswald was not one
of them. Moreover, they stated that because of what they perceived
to be his obvious instability, Oswald would never have met the
Agency's standards for use in the field 5(7) The heads of the
Soviet Russia Division's section that sought the cooperation of visitors
to the Soviet Union informed the committee that they met with each
person involved in their program and that Oswald was not one of
them.(8) These officials also advised the committee that
"clean-cut" collegiate types tended to be used in this program, and that Oswald
did not meet this criterion.(9) Finally, the officers in charge of the
Soviet Russia Division's research section in support of clandestine
activities indicated that, had Oswald been contacted by the Agency,
their section would probably have been informed, but that this, in
fact, never occurred. (10)

(2) CIA personnel abroad.--Turning to particular allegations, the
committee investigated the statement of former CIA employee James
Wilcott, who testified in executive session that shortly after the
assassination of President Kennedy he was advised by fellow employees
at a CIA post abroad that Oswald was a CIA agent who had
received financial disbursements under an assigned cryptonym.6(11)
Wilcott explained that he had been employed by the CIA as a finance
officer from 1957 until his resignation in 1966. In this capacity, he

3Classified analyses of these issues, written in undeleted form,
are in the committee's files.

4The visitors program sought the cooperation, for limited
purposes, of carefully selected persons traveling in the Soviet Union. For this unit, only the years 1959-61
were covered. Nevertheless, since every American traveler who was involved in this program was
contacted before visiting the Soviet Union, the relevant year for Lee Harvey Oswald was 1959, the year he departed
from the United States.

5One officer acknowledged the remote possibility that an
individual could have been run by someone as part of a "vest pocket" (private or personal)
operation without other Agency officials knowing about it. But even this possibility, as it applies to
Oswald, was negated by the statement of the deputy chief of the Soviet Russia clandestine activities section.
He commented that in 1963 he was involved in a review of every clandestine operation ever run in the
Soviet Union, and Oswald was not involved in any of these cases.

6A cryptonym us a code designation for an agency project, program
or activity or an organization, agency or individual (for whom a legal signature is not
required) having a sensitive operational relationship with the agency. Cryptonyms are used in
communications only to the extent necessary to protect sensitive information from disclosure
to unauthorized persons. They are used (1) when disclosure of the true identity of persons,
organizations or activities would be detrimental to the interest of the U.S. Government or to
the persons, organizations or activities concerned; or (2) to prevent disclosure of a
sensitive operational relationship with the agency.

Page 199

served as a fiscal account assistant on the support staff at a post
abroad from June 1960 to June 1964. In addition to his regular
responsibilities, he had performed security duty on his off-hours in
order to supplement his income. This put him in contact with other
employees of the post who would come by the office and engage in
informal conversations. On the day after President Kennedy's assassination,
Wilcott claimed he was informed by a CIA case officer that
Oswald was an agent.(12) He further testified that he was told that
Oswald had been assigned a cryptonym and that Wilcott himself had
unknowingly disbursed payments for Oswald's project. (13) Although
Wilcott was unable to identify the specific case officer who had initially
informed him of Oswald's agency relationship, he named several employees
of the post abroad with whom he believed he had subsequently
discussed the allegations. (14)

Wilcott advised the committee that after learning of the alleged
Oswald connection to the CIA, he never rechecked official Agency
disbursement records for evidence of the Oswald project. He explained
that this was because at that time he viewed the information as mere
shop talk and gave it little credence. (15) Neither did he report the
allegations to any formal investigative bodies, as he considered the
information hearsay.(16) Wilcott was unable to recall the agency
cryptonym for the particular project in which Oswald had been
involved, (17) nor was he familiar with the substance of that project.
In this regard, however, because project funds were disbursed on a
code basis, as a disbursement officer he would not have been apprised
of the substantive aspects of projects.

In an attempt to investigate Wilcott's allegations, the committee
interviewed several present and former CIA employees selected on
the basis of the position each had held during the years 1954-64.
Among the persons interviewed were individuals whose responsibilities
covered a broad spectrum of areas in the post abroad, including
the chief and deputy chief of station, as well as officers in finance,
registry, the Soviet Branch and counterintelligence.

None of these individuals interviewed had ever seen any documents
or heard any information indicating that Oswald was an agent. (18)
This allegation was not known by any of them until it was published
by critics of the Warren Commission in the late 1960's.(19) Some of
the individuals, including a chief of counterintelligence in the Soviet
Branch, expressed the belief that it was possible that Oswald had
been recruited by the Soviet KGB during his military tour of duty
overseas, as the CIA had identified a KGB program aimed at
recruiting U.S. military personnel during the period Oswald was stationed
there. (20) An intelligence analyst whom Wilcott had specifically
named as having been involved in a conversation about the
Oswald allegation told the committee that he was not in the post
abroad at the time of the assassination.(21) A review of this individual's
office of personnel file confirmed that, in fact, he had been
transferred from the post abroad to the United States in 1962. (22)
The chief of the post abroad from 1961 to 1964 stated that had
Oswald been used by the Agency he certainly would have learned
about it.(23) Similarly, almost all those persons interviewed who

Page 200

worked in the Soviet Branch of that station indicated they would
have known if Oswald had, in fact, been recruited by the CIA
when he was overseas.(24) These persons expressed the opinion that,
had Oswald been recruited without their knowledge, it would have
been a rare exception contrary to the working policy and guidelines
of the post abroad. (25)

Based on all the evidence, the committee concluded that Wilcott's
allegation was not worthy of belief.

(3) Oswald's CIA file.--The CIA has long acknowledged that prior
to the president's assassination, it had a personality file on Oswald,
that is, a file that contained data about Oswald as an individual. This
file, which in Agency terminology is referred to as a 201 file, was
opened on December 9, 1960. (26) The Agency explained that 201 files
are opened when a person is considered to be of potential intelligence
or counterintelligence significance.(27) The opening of such a file is
designed to serve the purpose of placing certain CIA information
pertaining to that individual in one centralized records system. The
201 file is maintained in a folder belonging to the Directorate for
Operations, the Agency component responsible for clandestine
activities.(28)

The existence of a 201 file does not necessarily connote any actual
relationship or contact with the CIA. For example, the Oswald file
was opened, according to the Agency, because as an American defector,
he was considered to be of continuing intelligence interest.(29)
Oswald's file contained no indication that he had ever had a relationship
with the CIA. Nevertheless, because the committee was aware
of one instance (in an unrelated case) where an Agency officer had apparently
contemplated the use of faked files with forged documents,
(30) special attention was given to procedural questions that were
occasioned by this file review.

(4) Why the delay in opening Oswald's 201 file?--A confidential
State Department telegram dated October 31, 1959, sent from Moscow
to Washington and forwarded to the CIA, reported that Oswald, a
recently discharged Marine, had appeared at the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow to renounce his American citizenship and "has offered Soviets
any information he has acquired as [an] enlisted radar operator."(31)
At least three other communications of a confidential nature that gave
more detail on the Oswald case were sent to the CIA in about the same
time period.(32) Agency officials questioned by the committee testified
that the substance of the October 31, 1959, cable was sufficiently important to
warrant the opening of a 201 file.(33) Oswald's file was not,
however, opened until December 9, 1960.(34)

The committee requested that the CIA indicate where documents
pertaining to Oswald had been disseminated internally and stored
prior to the opening of his 201 file. The agency advised the committee
that because document dissemination records of relatively low national
security significance are retained for only a 5-year period, they were
no longer in existence for the years 1959-63. (35)8
Consequently, the Agency was unable to explain either when these documents had been
received or by which component.

8None of these documents were classified higher than
confidential

Page 201

An Agency memorandum, dated September 18, 1975, indicates that
Oswald's file was opened on December 9, 1960, in response to the receipt
of five documents: two from the FBI, two from the State Department
and one from the Navy. (36) This explanation, however, is inconsistent
with the presence in Oswald's file of four State Department documents
dated in 1959 and a fifth dated May 25, 1960. It is, of course, possible
that the September 18, 1975, memorandum is referring to State Department
documents that were received by the Directorate for Plans 9
in October and November of 1960 and that the earlier State Department
communications had been received by the CIA's Office of Security
but not the Directorate for Plans. In the absence of dissemination
record however, the issue could not be resolved.

The September 18, 1975, memorandum also states that Oswald's file
was opened on December 9, 1960, as a result of his "defection" to the
U.S.S.R. on October 31, 1959 and renewed interest in Oswald brought
about by his queries concerning possible reentry into the United
States."(37) There is no indication, however, that Oswald expressed
to any U.S. Government official an intention to return to the United
States until mid-February 1961. (38) Finally, reference to the original
form that was used to start a file on Oswald did not resolve this issue
because the appropriate space that would normally indicate the "source
document" that initiated the action referred to an Agency
component rather than to a dated document. 10(39)

The committee was able to determine the basis for opening Oswald's
file on December 9, 1960, by interviewing and then deposing the
Agency employee who was directly responsible for initiating the opening
action. This individual explained that the CIA had received a
request from the State Department for information concerning American
defectors. After compiling the requested information, she responded
to the inquiry and then opened a 201 file on each defector
involved. (40)

This statement was corroborated by review of a State Department
letter which indicated that such a request, in fact, had been made of
the CIA on October 25, 1960. Attached to the State Department letter
was a list of known defectors; Oswald's name was on that list.
The CIA responded to this request on November 21, 1960, by providing
the requested information and adding two names to the State Department's
original list. (41)

Significantly, the committee reviewed the original State Department
list and determined that files were opened in December 1960 for each of
the five (including Oswald) who did not have 201 files prior to receipt
of the State Department inquiry. In each case, the slot for "source document"
referred to an Agency component rather than to a dated document.(42)

Even so, this analysis only explained why a file on Oswald was
finally opened; it did not explain the seemingly long delay in
opening of the file. To determine whether such a delayed opening was
unusual, the committee reviewed the files of 13 of the 14 persons on
the CIA's November 21 1960, response to the State Department and

9The Directorate for Plans was the predecessor of the
Directorate of Operations.

10The Agency indicated that it is customary to refer to a
component when the opening action is taken on that component's authority.

Page 202

of 16 other defectors (from an original list of 380) who were American-born,
had defected during the years 1958-63, and who had returned
to the United States during that same time period. Of 29 individuals
whose files were reviewed, 8 had been the subject of 201
files prior to the time of their defection. In only 4 of the remaining
cases were 201 files opened at the time of defection. The files on the
17 other defectors were opened from 4 months to several years after
the defection. (43) At the very least, the committee's review indicated
that during 1958-63, the opening of a file years after a defection was
not uncommon. In many cases, the opening was triggered by some
event, independent of the defection, that had drawn attention to the
individual involved.

(5) Why was he carried as Lee Henry Oswald in his 201 file?

Oswald's 201 file was opened under the name Lee Henry Oswald. (44)
No Agency witness was able to explain why. All agency personnel
however, including the person who initiated the file opening, testified
that this must have been occasioned innocently by bureaucratic error.(45)
Moreover, the committee received substantial testimony to
the effect that this error would not-have prevented the misnamed file
from being retrieved from the CIA's filing system during a routine
name trace done under the name Lee Harvey Oswald. (46)

(6) The meaning of "AG" under "Other Identification" in Oswald's 201 file.---The form used to initiate the opening of a 201
file for Lee Harvey Oswald contains the designation AG in a box marked
"Other Identification." Because this term was considered to be of potential
significance in resolving the issue of Oswald's alleged Agency
relationship, the CIA was asked to explain its meaning.

The Agency's response indicated that "AG" is the OI ("Other
Identification") code meaning "actual or potential defectors to the
East or the Sino/Soviet block including Cuba," and that anyone so
described could have the OI code "AG." This code was reportedly
added to Oswald's opening form because of the comment on the form
that he had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959. (47)

An Agency official, who was a Directorate of Operations records
expert and for many years one who had been involved in the CIA's
investigation of the Kennedy assassination, gave the committee a
somewhat different explanation of the circumstances surrounding the
term "AG" and its placement on Oswald's opening form. This individual
testified that "AG" was an example of a code used to aid in
preparing computer listings of occupational groupings or intelligence
affiliations. He explained that these codes always used two letters
and that, in this case, the first letter "A" must have represented
communism, while the second letter would represent some category within
the Communist structure.(48)

His recollection was that at the time of the assassination, the "AG"
code was not yet in existence because there were no provisions then in
effect within the Agency for indexing American defectors. He recalled
that it was only during the life of the Warren Commission that the
CIA realized that its records system lacked provisions for indexing an
individual such as Oswald. Consequently, the CIA revised its records
manual to permit the indexing of American defectors and established
a code for its computer system to be used for that category. Although

Page 203

this witness did not know when the notation "AG" was added to
Oswald's opening sheet, he presumed that it must have been following
the addition of the American defector code, thus placing the time
somewhere in the middle of the Warren Commission's investigation.
He explained that it was difficult to determine when any of the notations
on the opening sheet had been made, since it was standard procedure
to update the forms whenever necessary so that they were as
reflective as possible of the available information.11(49)

Finally, this witness testified that the regulations regarding the use
of this occupation and intelligence code specifically prohibited indicating
that a particular person was either an employee of the Agency
or someone who was used by the Agency. This prohibition was designed
to prevent anyone from being able to produce any kind of
categorical listing of CIA employees, contacts or connections.(50)

(7) Why was Oswald's 201 file restricted?--The form used to initiate
the opening of Oswald's 201 file contains a notation indicating
that the file was to be "restricted". (51) This indication was
considered potentially significant because of the CIA's practice of
restricting access to agents' files to persons on a "need-to-know" basis.
Further investigation revealed, however, that restricting access to a file
was not necessarily indicative of an relationship with the CIA.

The individual who actually placed the restriction on Oswald's file
testified that this was done simply to allow her to remain aware of any
developments that might have occurred with regard to the file.(52)
The restriction achieved this purpose because any person seeking access
to the file would first have to notify the restricting officer, at which
time the officer would be apprised of any developments.

This testimony was confirmed by a CIA records expert who further
testified that had the file been permanently charged to a particular desk
or case officer, as well as restricted, the possibility of a relationship
with the CIA would have been greater. (53) There is no indication on
Oswald's form that it had been placed on permanent charge.

Finally, the committee reviewed the files of four other defectors
that had been opened at the same time and by the same person as
Oswald's, and determined that each of the files had been similarly restricted.
Each of these other individuals was on the lists of defectors
that had been exchanged by the CIA and State Department. None of
the files pertaining to these other defectors had any evidence suggestive
of a possible intelligence agency association.

(8) Were 37 documents missing from Oswald's 201 file?-- In the
course of reviewing Oswald's 201 file, the committee discovered an
unsigned memorandum to the Chief of Counterintelligence. Research
and Analysis, dated February 20, 1964, which stated that 37 documents
were missing from Oswald's 201 file.(54) According to the memorandum,
this statement was based on a comparison of a machine listing
of documents officially recorded as being in the 201 file and those
documents actually physically available in the file. (55) While the memorandum
mentioned that such a machine listing was attached, no such
attachment was found in the 201 file at the time of the committee's

11The CIA, after considering this witness' recollection of
the origin of the AG code, adhered to its original position regarding this issue.

Page 204

review. The memorandum itself bears the classification "Secret Eyes
Only" and was one of the documents that had been fully withheld from
release under the Freedom of Information Act. (56)

In response to a committee inquiry, the CIA advised that, because
Oswald's file had been so active during the course of the Warren Commission
investigation, up-to-date machine listings were produced
periodically. On this basis, the Agency stated that

...it must be assumed that whoever was responsible for
maintaining the Oswald file brought this file up-to-date by
locating the 37 documents and placing them in the file. (57)

Because this response was incomplete, the author of the memorandum
was deposed. He testified that once a document had been registered into
a 201 file by the Agency's computer system, physical placement of the
document in the file was not always necessary. (58) On this basis, he
explained, the items listed in the memorandum were not missing but
rather had either been routinely placed in a separate file because of
their sensitivity or were being held by other individuals who needed
them for analytical purposes. (59) He further stated that in the course
of his custodianship of Oswald's file, he had requested perhaps as many
as 100 computer listings on the contents of the Oswald file. While there
had been many instances in which one or more documents had been
charged out to someone, he stated that he had never discovered that
any documents were actually missing. (60) According to his testimony,
the 37 documents were, in fact, available, but they were not located in
the file at the time. (61) The committee regarded this to be a plausible
explanation.

(9) Did the CIA maintain a dual filing system on Oswald?-- The
committee was aware of the possibility that a dual filing system (one
innocuous file and one that contained operational detail of a relationship
with the CIA) could have been used to disguise a possible
relationship between Oswald and the Agency. This awareness became a
concern with the discovery that at least two Agency officers had contemplated
the use of faked files and forged documents to protect the
ZR Rifle project from disclosure.12(62) The implications of this
discovery in terms of the possibility that the Oswald file might also have
been faked were disturbing to the committee.

In the Oswald case, two items were scrutinized because they were
potentially indicative of a dual filing system. The first was a photograph
of Oswald that had been taken in Minsk in 1961; the second
was a copy of a letter that had been written to Oswald by his mother during
his stay in the Soviet Union. At the time of President Kennedy's
assassination, both of these items were in the CIA's possession, but
neither was in Oswald's 201 file.

The photograph of Oswald taken in Minsk shows him posing with
several other people. According to the CIA, the picture was found
after the assassination as a result of a search of the Agency's graphics
files for materials potentially relevant to Oswald's stay in the Soviet

12ZR Rifle was an executive action (assassination of foreign
leader) program unrelated to the Oswald case. Former CIA Director Helms testified that the
assassination aspect of ZR Rifle was never implemented and, in fact, was discontinued as
soon as it was brought to his attention. (63)

Page 205

Union.(64) The Agency advised that this photograph, as well as
several others not related to Oswald, were routinely obtained in 1962
from some tourists by the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division, an
Agency component that regularly sought information on a nonclandestine
basis from Americans traveling abroad in Communist countries. (65)

Committee interviews with the tourists in question confirmed that
the photograph, along with 159 other photographic slides, had
routinely been made available to the Domestic Contacts Division.
Neither tourist had heard of Oswald prior to the assassination or knew
which photographs had been of interest to the Agency. (66)

CIA records indicate that only 5 of the 160 slides initially made
available were retained. (67) Committee interviews with the two CIA
employees who had handled the slides for the Domestic Contacts Division
established that Oswald had not been identified at the time that
these photographic materials were made available.(68) One of these
employees stated that the Oswald picture had been retained because it
depicted a Soviet Intourist guide; the other employee indicated that
the picture had been kept because it showed a crane in the background.(69)
Of these two employees, the one who worked at CIA
headquarters (and therefore was in a position to know) indicated
that the photograph of Oswald had not been discovered until a post-assassination
search of the Minsk graphics file for materials pertaining to Oswald. (70)

Accordingly, this photograph was not evidence that the CIA
maintained a dual filing system with respect to Oswald. The picture
apparently was kept in a separate file until 1964, when Oswald was
actually identified to be one of its subjects.

The committee's investigation of a copy of a letter to Oswald from
his mother that was in the Agency's possession similarly did not show
any evidence of a dual filing system. This letter, dated July 6, 1961
and sent by Marguerite Oswald, was intercepted as a result of a CIA
program (71) known as HT-Lingual,13 the purpose of which was to
obtain intelligence and counterintelligence information from letters
sent between the United States and Russia. Typically, intercepted
letters and envelopes would be photographed and then returned to the
mails.(72)

In response to a committee inquiry, the CIA explained that because
of HT-Lingual's extreme sensitivity, all materials generated as a result
of mail intercepts were stored in a separate project file that was
maintained by the counterintelligence staff.(73) Consequently, such
items were not placed in 201 files. This explanation was confirmed by
the testimony of a senior officer from the counterintelligence staff who
had jurisdiction over the HT-Lingual project files 14(74)

(10) Did Oswald ever participate in a CIA counterintelligence project?--
The committee's review of HT-Lingual files pertaining to

13The HT-Lingual program was no longer in effect in 1978.
Prior to that time, it had been found to be illegal

14Since Oswald was known to have sent or received more than 50
communications during his stay in the Soviet Union, the committee also questioned why the
Agency ostensibly had just one letter in its possession directly related to Oswald. In essence,
the Agency's response suggested that HT-Lingual only operated 4 days a week, and, even then,
proceeded on a sampling basis.

Page 206

the Oswald case 15 resulted in the discovery of reproductions of four
index cards, two with reference to Lee Harvey Oswald and two to
Marina Oswald, which were dated after the assassination of President
Kennedy. The pages containing the reproductions of these cards were
stamped "Secret Eyes Only." (75)

The first card regarding Lee Harvey Oswald, dated November 9,
1959, states that Oswald is a recent defector to the U.S.S.R. and a
former marine. It also bears the notation "CI/Project/RE" and
some handwritten notations. (76) The second card on Oswald places
him in Minsk. It contains background information on him and
states that he "reportedly expresses a desire for return to the United
States under certain conditions." This card is dated August 7, 1961,
and also bears the notation "Watch List." (77) These cards, particularly
the reference to "CI/Project/RE," raised the question of
whether Oswald was, in fact, involved in some sort of counterintelligence
project for the CIA.

The committee questioned former employees of the CIA who may
have had some knowledge pertaining to the HT-Lingual project in
general and these cards in particular. Some of these employees recognized
the cards as relating to the HT-Lingual project, but were
unable to identify the meaning of the notation, "CI/Project/RE." (78)

One employee, however, testified that the "CI Project" was "simply
a name of convenience that was used to describe the HT-Lingual
project"; (79) another testified that "CI Project" was the name of
the component that ran the HT-Lingual project. This person also explained
that "RE" represented the initials of a person who had been
a translator of foreign language documents and that the initials had
probably been placed there so that someone could come back to the
translator if a question arose concerning one of the documents.(80)
Another employee indicated that the "Watch List" notation on the
second card referred to persons who had been identified as being of
particular interest with respect to the mail intercept program. (81)

The committee requested the CIA to provide an explanation for
the terms "CI/Project/RE" and "Watch List" and for the handwritten
notations appearing on the index cards. In addition, the committee
requested a description of criteria used in compiling a "Watch List?"

With respect to the meaning of the notation "CI/Project/RE," the
CIA explained that there existed an office within the counterintelligence
staff that was known as "CI/Project," a cover title that had been
used to hide the true nature of the office's functions. In fact, this office
was responsible for the exploitation of the material produced by the
HT-Lingual project. The Agency further explained that "RE" represented
the initials of a former employee. (82)

In responding to a request for the criteria used in compiling a
"Watch List," the CIA referred to a section of the "Report to the
President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States,"
which states:

15Although the Agency had only one Oswald letter in its possession,
the HT-Lingual files were combed after the assassination for additional materials potentially related to him.
Approximately 30 pieces of correspondence that were considered potentially related to the
investigation of Oswald's case (even though not necessarily directly related to Oswald)
were discovered. None of these was ultimately judged by the CIA to be of any significance.
These materials, however, were stored in a separate Oswald HT-Lingual file.

Page 207

Individuals or organizations of particular intelligence
interest (one should also add counterintelligence interest)
were specified in watch lists provided to the mail project by
the counterintelligence staff, by other CIA components, and
by the FBI. The total number of names on the Watch List varied,
from time to time, but on the average, the list included
approximately 300 names, including about 100 furnished by
the FBI. The Watch List included the names of foreigners
and of U.S. citizens. (83)

Thus, the full meaning of the notation is that on November 9, 1959,
an employee whose initials were RE placed Oswald's name on the
"Watch List" for the HT-Lingual project for the reason stated on
the card--that Oswald was a recent defector to the U.S.S.R. and a former Marine.(84)

The response went on to state that the handwritten number, No.
7-305, which also appears on the first card, is a reference to the communication
from the CI staff to the Office of Security, expressing the
CI staff's interest in seeing any mail to or from Oswald in the Soviet
Union. Finally, the other handwritten notation, "N/R-RI, 20
Nov. 59" signifies that a name trace run through the central
records register indicates that there was no record for Lee Oswald as of that
date.16(85)

The Agency's explanation of the meaning of the second card was
that on August 7, 1961, the CIA staff officer who opened the Oswald
201 file requested that Oswald's name be placed on the "Watch
List" because of Oswald's expressed desire to return to the United States,
as stated on the card. The handwritten notation indicates, in this instance,
that Oswald's name was deleted from the "Watch List" on May 28,
1962.(86)

With reference to the two cards on Marina Oswald, the Agency
stated that her name was first placed on the "Watch List" on November
26, 1963, because she was the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald. The second
card served the purpose of adding the name Marina Oswald Porter to
the "Watch List" on June 29, 1965, after she had remarried. Both
names were deleted from the list as of May 26, 1972. (87)

Thus the statements of former CIA employees were corroborated by
the Agency's response regarding the explanation of the index cards
in the CIA's HT-Lingual files pertaining to Oswald. The explanations
attested that the references on the cards were not demonstrative of
an Agency relationship with Oswald, but instead were examples of
notations routinely used in connection with the HT-Lingual
project.

(11) Did the CIA ever debrief Oswald?--The CIA has denied
ever having had any contact with Oswald,(88) and its records are
consistent with this position. Because the Agency has a Domestic Contacts
Division that routinely attempts to solicit information on a nonclandestine basis from
Americans traveling abroad,(89) the absence
of any record indicating that Oswald, a returning defector who had
worked in a Minsk radio factory, had been debriefed has been con-

16This, of course, is contrary to the Agency's record
that indicates the receipt of a telegram concerning Oswald on Oct. 31, 1959, and of two
telegrams from the Navy concerning him on Nov. 3 and 4, 1959.

Page 208

sidered by Warren Commission critics to be either inherently unbelievable
(that is, the record was destroyed) or indicative that Oswald
had been contacted through other than routine Domestic Contact Division
channels. (90)

After reviewing the Agency's records pertaining to this issue, the
committee interviewed the former chief of an Agency component
responsible for research related to clandestine operations within the
Soviet Union. He had written a November 25, 1963, memorandum indicating
that, upon Oswald's return from the Soviet Union, he had
considered "the laying of interviews [on him] through the [Domestic
Contacts Division] or other suitable channels."17(91) The officer
indicated that Oswald was considered suspect because the Soviets
appeared to have been very solicitous of him. For this reason, a nonclandestine
contact, either by the Domestic Contacts Division or other "suitable
channels" such as the FBI or the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, was considered.(92) The officer stated, however, that to his
knowledge no contact with Oswald was ever made. Moreover, if a debriefing
had occurred, the officer stated that he would have been informed.
Finally, he said that Oswald was considered a potential lead,
but only of marginal importance, and therefore the absence of a debriefing
was not at all unusual. (93)

The committee interviewed five other Agency employees who were
in a position to have discussed Oswald in 1962 with the author of this
memorandum, including the person who replaced the author of the
memorandum as chief of the research section. None of them could recall
such a discussion.(94) Interviews with personnel from the Soviet
Russia Division's clandestine operations section, the visitors program
and the clandestine activity research section failed to result in any
evidence suggesting that Oswald had been contacted at any time by
the CIA.(96)

The author of the November 25, 1963, memorandum also informed
the committee that the CIA maintained a large volume of information
on the Minsk radio factory in which Oswald had worked. This
information was stored in the Office of Research and Reports.(96)

Another former CIA employee, one who had worked in the Soviet
branch of the Foreign Documents Division of the Directorate of Intelligence
in 1962, advised the committee that he specifically recalled
collecting intelligence regarding the Minsk radio plant. In fact, this
individual claimed that during the summer of 1962 he reviewed a
contact report from representatives of a CIA field office who had interviewed
a former marine who had worked at the Minsk radio plant
following his defection to the U.S.S.R. This defector, whom the employee
believed may have been Oswald, had been living with his family
in Minsk. (97)

The employee advised the committee that the contact report had
been filed in a volume on the Minsk radio plant that should be retrievable
from the Industrial Registry Branch, then a component of
the Office of Central Reference. Accordingly, the committee requested
that the CIA provide both the contact report and the volume of ma-

17The November 25, 1963 memorandum indicates that the possibility
of an Oswald contact was discussed during the summer of 1960, but the author indicated
that the conversation actually took place during the summer of 1962, shortly before his
transfer to a new assignment. During the summer of 1960, the author was not on active
assignment.

Page 209

terials concerning the Minsk radio plant. A review by the committee
of the documents in the volumes on the Minsk radio plant, however,
failed to locate any such contact report. (98)

Since the Minsk radio plant seemed to be a logical subject of CIA
concern, the committee theorized that questions about it would have
been included in the debriefing of defectors. The committee therefore
asked the Agency for a statement regarding its procedures for
debriefing defectors. In response, the CIA stated that between 1958
and 1963 it had no procedure for systematically debriefing overseas
travelers, including returning defectors. Instead, the Agency relied
upon the FBI both to make such contacts and report any significant
results.(99)

To investigate this question further, the committee reviewed the
files of 22 other defectors to the Soviet Union (from an original
list of 380) who were born in America and appeared to have returned
to the United States between 1958 and 1963.18 Of these 22 individuals,
only 4 were interviewed at any time by the CIA. These four instances
tended to involve particular intelligence or counterintelligence needs,
but this was not always the case. (100)

Based on this file review, it appeared to the committee that, in
fact, the CIA did not contact returning defectors in 1962 as a matter of
standard operating procedure. For this reason, the absence of any
Agency contact with Oswald on his return from the Soviet Union
could not be considered unusual, particularly since the FBI did fulfill
its jurisdictional obligation to conduct defector interviews.(101)

(12) The Justice Department's failure to prosecute Oswald.--
When Oswald appeared at the U.S. Embassy on October 31, 1959, to
renounce his American citizenship, he allegedly threatened to give the
Soviets information he had acquired as a Marine Corps radar operator.(102)
The committee sought to determine why the Justice Department
did not prosecute Oswald on his return to the United States
for his offer to divulge this kind of information.

A review of Oswald's correspondence with the American Embassy
in Moscow indicates that on February 13, 1961, the embassy received
a letter in which Oswald expressed a "desire to return to the United
States if ...some agreement [could be reached] concerning the
dropping of any legal proceedings against [him]." (103) On February
28, 1961, the embassy sought guidance from the State Department
concerning Oswald's potential liability to criminal prosecution.(104)

The State Department, however, responded on April 13, 1961, that it
was not in a position to advise Mr. Oswald whether upon his
desired return to the United States he may be amenable to
prosecution for any possible offenses committed in violation
of the laws of the United States....(105)

In May 1961 Oswald wrote the embassy demanding a "full
guarantee" against the possibility of prosecution.(106) He visited with
Embassy Consul Richard Snyder on July 16, 1961, and denied that he
had ever given any information to the Soviets. (107) Snyder advised

18An effort was made to review only the files of those
who had defected between 1958 and 1963. Not all of the 22 defectors, however, met this criterion.

Page 210

Oswald on an informal basis that, while no assurances could be given,
the embassy did not perceive any basis for prosecuting him. (108)

There is no record that the State Department ever gave Oswald
any assurances that he would not be prosecuted. Upon his return to
the United States, Oswald was interviewed twice by the FBI. On
each occasion, he denied ever having given information to the Soviet
Union. (109)

In response to a committee request, the Department of Justice indicated
that prosecution of Oswald was never considered because his
file contained no evidence that he had ever revealed or offered to reveal
national defense information to the Soviet Union.(110) In a subsequent
response, the Department acknowledged the existence of some
evidence that Oswald had offered information to the Soviet Union,
but stated that there were, nevertheless, serious obstacles to a possible
prosecution:

It [the Department file] does contain a copy of an FBI
memorandum, dated July 3, 1961, which is recorded as having
been received in the Justice Department's Internal Security
Division on December 10, 1963, which states that the
files of the Office of Naval Intelligence contained a copy of a
Department of State telegram, dated October 31, 1959, at
Moscow. The telegram, which is summarized in the FBI
report, quoted Oswald as having offered the Soviets any information
he had acquired as a radar operator. The FBI
report did not indicate that the information to which Oswald
had access as a radar operator was classified.
Oswald returned to the United States on June 13, 1962.
He was interviewed by the FBI on June 26, 1962, at Fort
Worth, Tex., at which time he denied furnishing any information
to the Soviets concerning his Marine Corps experiences.
He stated that he never gave the Soviets any information
which would be used to the detriment of the United
States.
In sum, therefore, the only
"evidence" that Oswald ever
offered to furnish information to the Soviets is his own
reported statement to an official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
That statement, of course, was contradicted by his denial
to the FBI, upon his return to the United States, that he had
ever made such an offer.
In the prosecution of a criminal case, the Government
cannot establish a prima facie case solely on a defendant's unsupported
confession. The Government must introduce substantial independent
evidence which would tend to establish
the trustworthiness of the defendant's statement. See, Opper
v. United States 348 U.S. 84 (1954).
Accordingly, in the absence of any information that
Oswald had offered to reveal classified information to the
Soviets, and lacking corroboration of his statement that he
had proferred information of any kind to the Russians, we
did not consider his prosecution for violation of the espionage
statutes 18 U.S.C. 793, 794. (111)

Page 211

Based upon this analysis, the committee could find no evidence that
Oswald received favorable treatment from either the State Department
or the Justice Department regarding the possibility of criminal
prosecution.

(13) Oswald's trip to Russia via London to Helsinki has been a
a visa in 2 days.--Oswald's trip from London to Helsinki has been a point of controversy.
His passport indicates he arrived in Finland on October 10, 1959. The Torni Hotel in Helsinki,
however, had him registered as a guest on that date, although the only direct flight from
London to Helsinki landed at 11:33 p.m. that day. According to a
memorandum signed in 1964 by Richard Helms, "[i]f Oswald had
taken this flight, he could not normally have cleared customs and
landing formalities and reached the Torni Hotel downtown by 2400
(midnight) on the same day." (112) Further questions concerning this
segment of Oswald's trip have been raised because he had been able
to obtain a Soviet entry visa within only 2 days of having applied for
it on October 12, 1959.(113)19

The committee was unable to determine the circumstances surrounding
Oswald's trip from London to Helsinki. Louis Hopkins, the
travel agent who arranged Oswald's initial transportation from the
United States, stated that he did not know Oswald's ultimate destination
at the time that Oswald booked his passage on the freighter
Marion Lykes.(114) Consequently, Hopkins had nothing to do with
the London-to-Helsinki leg of Oswald's trip. In fact, Hopkins stated
that had he known Oswald's final destination, he would have suggested
sailing on another ship that would have docked at a port more
convenient to Russia.(115) Hopkins indicated that Oswald did not
appear to be particularly well-informed about travel to Europe. The
travel agent did not know whether Oswald had been referred to him
by anyone.(116).

A request for any CIA and Department of Defense files on Louis
Hopkins resulted in a negative response. The committee was unable
to obtain any additional sources of information regarding Oswald's
London-to-Helsinki trip.

The relative ease with which Oswald obtained his Soviet Union
entry visa was more readily amenable to investigation. This issue is
one that also had been of concern to the Warren Commission.(117)
In a letter to the CIA dated May 25, 1964, J. Lee Rankin inquired
about the apparent speed with which Oswald's Soviet visa had been
issued. Rankin noted that he had recently spoken with Abraham
Chayes, legal adviser to the State Department, who maintained that
at the time Oswald received his visa to enter Russia from the Soviet
Embassy in Helsinki, normally at least 1 week would elapse between
the time of a tourist's application and the issuance of a visa. Rankin
contended that if Chayes assessment was accurate, then Oswald's
ability to obtain his tourist visa in 2 days might have been
significant. (118)

The CIA responded Rankin that the Soviet Consulate in Helsinki
1964. Helms wrote to Rankin that the Soviet Consulate in Helsinki

19Since Oswald arrived in Helsinki on October 10, 1959,
which was a Saturday, it is assumed that his first opportunity to apply for a visa would have
been on Monday, October 12

Page 212

was able to issue a transit visa (valid for 24 hours) to U.S. businessmen
within 5 minutes, but if a longer stay were intended, at least
1 week was needed to process a visa application and arrange lodging
through Soviet Intourist. (119) A second communication from Helms
to Rankin, dated September 14, 1964, added that during the 1964
tourist season, Soviet consulates in at least some Western European
cities issued Soviet tourist visas in from 5 to 7 days. (120)

In an effort to resolve this issue, the committee reviewed classified
information pertaining to Gregory Golub, who was the Soviet Consul
in Helsinki when Oswald was issued his tourist visa. This review revealed
that, in addition to his consular activities, Golub was suspected
of having been an officer of the Soviet KGB. Two American Embassy
dispatches concerning Golub were of particular significance with regard
to the time necessary for issuance of visas to Americans for travel
into the Soviet Union. The first dispatch recorded that Golub disclosed during
a luncheon conversation that:

Moscow had given him the authority to give Americans
visas without prior approval from Moscow. He [Golub]
stated that this would make his job much easier, and as long
as he was convinced the American was "all right" he could
give him a visa in a matter of minutes...(121)

The second dispatch, dated October 9, 1959, 1 day prior to
Oswald's arrival in Helsinki, illustrated that Golub did have the
authority to issue visas without delay. The dispatch discussed a telephone
contact between Golub and his consular counterpart at the
American Embassy in Helsinki:

...Since that evening [September 4, 1959] Golub has
only phoned [the U.S. consul] once and this was on a business
matter. Two Americans were in the Soviet Consulate at
the time and were applying for Soviet visas thru Golub.
They had previously been in the American consulate inquiring
about the possibility of obtaining a Soviet visa in
1 or 2 days. [The U.S. Consul] advised them to go directly
to Golub and make their request, which they did. Golub
phoned [the U.S. Consul] to state that he would give them
their visas as soon as they made advance Intourist reservations.
When they did this, Golub immediately gave them their
visas ....20(122)

Thus, based upon these two factors, (1) Golub's authority to issue
visas to Americans without prior approval from Moscow, and (2) a
demonstration of this authority, as reported in an embassy dispatch
approximately 1 month prior to Oswald's appearance at the Soviet
Embassy, the committee found that the available evidence tends to
support the conclusion that the issuance of Oswald's tourist visa within
2 days after his appearance at the Soviet Consulate was not indicative
of an American intelligence agency connection. 21

20Evidently Oswald had made arrangements with Intourist.
On his arrival at the Moscow railroad station on October 16, he was met by an Intourist
representative and taken to the Hotel Berlin where he registered as a student (123)

21If anything, Oswald's ability to receive a Soviet entry
visa so quickly was more indicative of a Soviet interest in him.

Page 213

(14) Oswald's contact with Americans in the Soviet Union.--
Priscilla Johnson McMillan, author of Marina and Lee," became a
subject of the committee's inquiry because she was one of two American
corespondents who had obtained an interview with Oswald during his
stay in Moscow in 1959. The committee sought to investigate an allegation
that her interview with Oswald may have been arranged by the CIA.(124)

John McVickar, a consul at the American Embassy, testified that he
had discussed Oswald's case with McMillan, and that he thought
"...she might help us in communicating with him and help him in
dealing with what appeared to be a very strong personal problem if
she were able to talk with him."(125) McVickar stated, however, that
he had never worked in any capacity for the CIA, nor did he believe
that McMillan had any such affiliation.(126) McVickar's State Department
and CIA files were consistent with his testimony that he had
never been associated with the CIA.

McMillan gave the following testimony about the events surrounding
her interview with Oswald. In November 1959 she had returned from a
visit to the United States where she covered the Camp David
summit meeting between President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev.
On November 16, 1959, she went to the American Embassy to pick
her mail for the first time since her return to the Soviet Union. The
mail pickup facility was in a foyer near the consular office. Consular
Officer John A. McVickar came out of this office and welcomed McMillan
back to the Soviet Union. They exchanged a few words, and, as
she was leaving, McVickar commented that at her hotel was an American
who was trying to defect to the Soviet Union. McVickar stated
that the American would not speak to "any of us," but he might speak
to McMillan because she was a woman. She recalled that as she
was leaving, McVickar told her to remember that she was an
American.(127)

McMillan proceeded to her hotel, found out the American's room
number, knocked on his door and asked him for an interview. The
American, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not ask her into the room, but he
did agree to talk to her in her room later that night. (128) No American
Government official arranged the actual interview. McMillan met
with Oswald just once. She believed that McVickar called her on November
17, the day after the interview, and asked her to supper. That
evening they discussed the interview. McVickar indicated a general
concern about Oswald and believed that the attitude of another American
consular official might have pushed Oswald further in the direction
of defection. McVickar indicated a personal feeling that it would
be a sad thing for Oswald to defect in view of his age, but he did not
indicate that this was the U.S. Government's position. (129)

McMillan also testified that she had never worked for the CIA, nor
had she been connected with any other Federal Government agency
at the time of her interview with Oswald. (130) According to an affidavit
that McMillan filed with the committee, her only employment
with the Federal Government was as a 30-day temporary
translator. (131).

Finally, McMillan testified that because of her background in Russian studies,
she applied for a position with the CIA in 1952 as an

Page 214

intelligence analyst. The application, however, was withdrawn.(132)
She acknowledged having been debriefed by an Agency employee in
1962 after returning from her third trip to the Soviet Union, but
explained that this contact was in some way related to the confiscation
of her notes by Soviet officials. (133)22

The committee's review of CIA files pertaining to Ms. McMillan
corroborated her testimony. There was no indication in these files
suggesting that she had ever worked for the CIA. In fact, the Agency
did not even debrief her after her first two trips to the Soviet Union.
An interview with the former Agency official who had been deputy
chief and then chief of the visitors program during the years 1958 to
1961 similarly indicated that McMillan had not been used by the CIA
in the program. (134)

There was information in McMillan's file indicating that on occasion
during the years 1962-65 she had provided cultural and literary
information to the CIA. None of this information was, however, suggestive
in any way of a clandestine relationship. Accordingly, there
was no evidence that McMillan ever worked for the CIA or received
the Agency assistance in obtaining an interview with Oswald.23

Richard E. Snyder was the consular official in the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow who handled the Oswald case. It was Snyder with whom Oswald
had met in 1959 when he sought to renounce his American citizenship.(135)
Two years later, when Oswald initiated his inquiries
about returning to the United States, Snyder again became involved
in the case.(136) Warren Commission critics have alleged that Snyder
was associated in some way with the CIA during his service in the
Moscow Embassy.(137)

In his committee deposition, Richard Snyder acknowledged that
for a 11-month period during 1949-50 he worked for the CIA while
he was on the waiting list for a foreign service appointment with the
State Department. (138) Snyder testified, however, that since resigning
from the CIA in March 1950, he had had no contact with the
other than a letter written in 1970 or 1971 inquiring about employment
on a contractual basis. (139)24

The committee reviewed Snyder's files at the State Department,
Defense Department and the CIA. Both the State Department and
Defense Department files are consistent with his testimony. Snyder's
CIA file revealed that, at one time prior to 1974, it had been red
flagged and maintained on a segregated basis. The file contained

22In her affidavit McMillan discussed the circumstances
surrounding this encounter in some detail: "In November 1962, I had a conversation with a man who identified
himself as a CIA employee...I agreed to see him in part because the confiscation of my papers
and notes had utterly altered my situation-- I now had no hope of returning to the U.S.S.R. and
was free for the first time to write what I knew. I was preparing a series of articles for The Reporter which would contain
the same information about which [the CIA employee] had expressed a desire to talk to me. Finally,
during the latter part of my 1962 trip to the U.S.S.R., I had been under heavy surveillance and the
KGB knew what Soviet citizens I had seen. Many of those I had talked to for the Reporter
articles were Russian "liberals" (anti-Stalin and pro-Khrushchev). What reprisals might befall those
whom I had interviewed I did not know, but since my notes were now part of the KGB files, I felt that it might help them if the
CIA knew that which the KGB already knew. My meeting with-- the CIA employee-- which occurred at the
Brattle Inn, Cambridge, was a reversal of my usual effort to avoid contact with the CIA, and
the subject matter was confined to my impressions of the Soviet literary and cultural climate."

23Nor was there any basis, based on McMillan's testimony, CIA
files or evidence provided by McMillan's publisher, Harper and Row, to support the allegation
that the CIA financed or was otherwise involved in publishing "Marina and Lee."

24Snyder also denied contact with any other intelligence service
while active as a foreign service officer.

Page 215

routing indicator that stated that the file had been red flagged because
of a "DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] statement and a matter
of cover" concerning Snyder.(140)

In response to a committee inquiry, the CIA indicated that the DCI
statement presumably refers to comments which former Director
Richard Helms had made in 1964 concerning the Oswald case, when
Helms was Deputy Director for Plans25 The CIA also stated that
Snyder's file had been flagged at the request of DDO/CI (Directorate
of Operations/Central Intelligence) to insure that all inquiries concerning
Snyder would be referred to that office. The Agency was unable to explain
the reference to "cover," because, according to its records,
Snyder had never been assigned any cover while employed. Further, the
Agency stated that "[t]here is no record in Snyder's official
personnel file that he ever worked, directly or indirectly, in any capacity
for the CIA after his resignation on 26 September 1950."

The committee did not regard this explanation as satisfactory, especially
since Snyder's 201 file indicated that for approximately 1 year
during 1956-57 he had been used by an Agency case officer as a spotter
at a university campus because of his access to others who might be
going to the Soviet Union, nor was the Agency able to explain
specifically why someone considered it necessary to red flag the Snyder
file.

The remainder of the Snyder file, however, is consistent, with his
testimony before the committee concerning the absence of Agency
contacts. In addition, the CIA personnel officer who handled Snyder's
case in 1950 confirmed that Snyder had, in fact, terminated his employment
with the CIA at that time. Moreover, he added that Snyder had
gone to the State Department as a bona fide employee without any
CIA ties. (143) This position was confirmed by a former State Department
official who was familiar with State Department procedures regarding
CIA employees. In addition, this individual stated that at
no time from 1959 to 1963 did the CIA use the State Department's overseas
consular positions as cover for CIA intelligence officers. (144)

The CIA's failure to explain adequately the red-flagging of Snyder's
file was extremely troubling to the committee. Even so, based on Snyder's
sworn testimony, the review of his file and the statements of his
former personnel officer, a finding that he was in contact with Oswald
on behalf of the CIA was not warranted.

Dr. Alexis H. Davison was the U.S. Embassy physician in Moscow
from May 1961 to May 1963. In May 1963, the Soviet Union declared
him persona non grata in connection with his alleged involvement in
the Penkovsky case. (145) After the assassination of President Kennedy,
it was discovered that the name of Dr. Davison's mother, Mrs.
Hal Davison, and her Atlanta address were in Oswald's address book
under the heading "Mother of U.S. Embassy Doctor."(146) In addition,
it was determined that the flight that Oswald, his wife and
child took from New York to Dallas on June 14, 1962, had stopped in
Atlanta. (147) For this reason, it has been alleged that Dr. Davison was
Oswald's intelligence contact in Moscow. (148)

25Responding to a newspaper allegation that Oswald had met with CIA representatives in Moscow,
Richard Helms wrote a memorandum to the Warren Commission on March 18, 1964, in which he
stated the "desire to state for the record that the allegation carried in this press
report is utterly unfounded as far as the CIA is concerned." (141)

Page 216

In a committee interview, Dr. Davison stated that he had been a
physician in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Moscow as the
U.S. Embassy physician from May 1961 to May 1963. In this capacity,
it was his duty to perform physical examinations on all Soviet immigrants
to the United States. He recalled that most of these immigrants
were elderly, but he remembers two young women, one who was a
mathematics teacher from the south of Russia and one who was married
to an American. The individual who was married to the American
was frightened by the prospect of going to the United States. She
stated that she was going to Texas with her husband. Davison told her
that if she and her husband traveled through Atlanta on their way to
Texas, his mother, a native-born Russian, would be happy to see her.
He gave his mother's name and address in Atlanta to the woman's
husband, who was "scruffy looking." This was not an unusual thing
to do, since his family had always very hospitable to Russians who
visited Atlanta. In retrospect, he assumed that he gave his mother's
name and address to either Lee or Marina Oswald, but he was uncertain
about this. (149)

After the assassination of President Kennedy, Davison was interviewed
first by a Secret Service agent and later by an FBI agent in
connection with the entry of his mother's name and address in
Oswald's address book. The FBI agent also interviewed Davison's mother,
Natalia Alekseevna Davison. Davison indicated that the Secret Service
and the FBI were the only Government agencies to interview him
about his contact with the Oswalds. (150)

Davison stated that in connection with his assignment as U.S. Embassy
physician in Moscow, he had received some superficial intelligence
training. This training mainly involved lectures on Soviet life
and instructions on remembering and reporting Soviet names and military
activities. (151)

Davison admitted his involvement in the Penkovsky spy case. During
his tour of duty in Moscow, Davison was asked by an Embassy
employee, whose name he no longer remembered, to observe a certain
lamppost on his daily route between his apartment and the Embassy
and to be alert for a signal by telephone. Davison agreed, according to
his instructions, if he ever saw a black chalk mark on the lamppost, or
if he ever received a telephone call in which the caller blew into the
receiver three times, he was to notify a person whose name he also no
longer remembered. He was told nothing else about the operation.
Davison performed his role for approximately 1 year. On just one
occasion, toward the end of his stay in the Soviet Union, he observed
the mark on the lamppost and his wife received the telephone signal.
As instructed, he reported these happenings. Shortly thereafter, the
Soviets reported that they had broken the Penkovsky spying operation.
The Soviets declared Davison persona non grata just after he left
Moscow, his tour of duty having ended. He did not recall any intelligence
debriefings on the Penkovsky case. (152)

Davison denied under oath participating in any other intelligence
work during his tour in Moscow. (153) The deputy chief of the CIA's
Soviet Russia clandestine activities section from 1960 to 1962 confirmed
Davison's position, characterizing his involvement in the Penkovsky
case as a "one shot" deal. (154) In addition, a review of Davison's CIA

Page 217

and Department of Defense files showed them to be consistent with his
committee testimony.

Accordingly, there was as insufficient evidence for concluding that
Dr. Davison was an intelligence contact for Oswald in Moscow.

(15) Alleged intelligence contacts after Oswald returned from
Russia.--George de Mohrenschildt was an enigmatic man--a geologist-businessman
who befriended Oswald in Texas in 1962,(155) thus
causing considerable speculation based on the contrasting backgrounds
of the two men. De Mohrenschildt, who committed suicide in 1977, was
sophisticated and well educated, a man who moved easily among
wealthy Texas oilmen and a circle of white Russians in Dallas many
of whom were avowed conservatives. Oswald, because of his background
and his Marxist ideological positions, was shunned by most of
the people de Mohrenschildt counted among his friends.

In his Warren Commission testimony, de Mohrenschildt stated that
he believed he had discussed Oswald with J. Walton Moore, whom he
described as "a Government man--either FBI or Central Intelligence."(156)
He said that Moore was known as the head of the FBI in
Dallas and that Moore had interviewed him in 1957 when he returned
from a trip to Yugoslavia. (157) De Mohrenschildt indicated that he
had asked Moore and Fort Worth attorney Max Clark about. Oswald,
to reassure himself that it was "safe" for the de Mohrenschildts to
assist him and was told by one of these persons, "The guy seems to be
OK"(158) This admitted association with J. Walton Moore, an employee
of the CIA, gave rise to the question of whether de Mohrenschildt had
contacted Oswald on behalf of the CIA. (159)

In 1963 J. Walton Moore was employed by the CIA in Dallas in
the Domestic Contacts Division. (160) According to Moore's CIA personnel
file, he had been assigned to the division in 1948. During the
period April 1, 1963, to March 31, 1964, he was an overt CIA employee
assigned to contact persons traveling abroad for the purpose of eliciting
information they might obtain. He was not part of a covert or
clandestine operation.

In an Agency memorandum dated April 13, 1977, contained in
deMohrenschildt's CIA file, Moore set forth facts to counter a claim
that had been recently made by a Dallas television station that Oswald
had been employed by the CIA and that Moore had known him. In
that memorandum, Moore was quoted as saying that, according to his
records, the last time he had talked with de Mohrenschildt was in the
fall of 1961. Moore said that he had no recollection of any conversation
with de Mohrenschildt concerning Oswald. The memorandum
also said that Moore recalled only two occasions when he had met
de Mohrenschildt--first, in the spring of 1958, to discuss a mutual
interest in China, and then in the fall of 1961, when de Mohrenschildt
and his wife showed films of their Latin American walking trip. (161)

Other documents in de Mohrenschildt's CIA file, however, indicated
more contact with Moore than was stated in the 1977 memorandum.
In a memorandum dated May 1, 1964, submitted to the Acting Chief of
the Domestic Contacts Division of the CIA, Moore stated that he had
known de Mohrenschildt and his wife since 1957, at which time Moore
obtained biographical data on de Mohrenschildt following his trip to
Yugoslavia for the International Cooperation Administration. Moore

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also wrote in that 1964 memorandum that he had seen de Mohrenschildt
several times in 1958 and 1959. De Mohrenschildt's CIA file contained
several reports submitted by de Mohrenschildt to the CIA on topics
concerning Yugoslavia. (162)

De Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission that he
had never been in any respect an intelligence agent. (163) Further, the
committee's interview with Moore and its review of the CIA's Moore
and de Mohrenschildt files showed no evidence that de Mohrenschildt
had ever been an American intelligence agent. (In this regard, the
committee noted that during 1959-63, upon returning from trips
abroad, as many as 25,000 Americans annually provided information
to the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division on a nonclandestine
basis. (164) Such acts of cooperation should not be confused with an
actual Agency relationship).26

Prior to visiting Mexico in September 1963, Oswald applied in New
Orleans for a Mexican tourist card. The tourist card immediately preceding
his in numerical sequence was issued on September 17, 1963,
(167) to William G. Gaudet, a newspaper editor. Two days later,
Gaudet departed on a 3- or 4-week trip to Mexico and other Latin
American countries.(168) This happened to coincide with Oswald's
visit to Mexico City between September 27, 1963, and October 3,
1963.(169) After the assassination, Gaudet advised the FBI during
an interview that he had once been employed by the CIA.(170)
Speculation about Gaudet's possible relationship with Oswald arose
when it was discovered that the Warren Commission Report contained
a list, provided by the Mexican Government, purporting to include all
individuals who had been issued Mexican tourist cards at the same time
as Oswald, a list that omitted Gaudet's name. (171)

In a committee deposition, Gaudet testified that his contact with
the CIA was primarily as a source of information (obtained during
his trips abroad). In addition, he explained that he occasionally performed
errands for the Agency. (172) Gaudet stated that his last contact
with the CIA was in 1969, although the relationship had never
been formally terminated. (173)

The committee reviewed Gaudet's CIA file but found neither any
record reflecting a contact between him and the Agency after 1961,
nor any indication that he had "performed errands" for the CIA. A
memorandum, dated January 23, 1976, also indicated the absence of
any further contact after this time:

The Domestic Collections Division (DCD) has an inactive
file on William George Gaudet, former editor and publisher
of the Latin American Report. The file shows that Gaudet
was a source of the New Orleans DCD (Domestic Contacts
Division) Resident Office from 1948 to 1955 during which
period he provided foreign intelligence information on Latin
American political and economic conditions resulting from
his extensive travel in South and Central America in pursuit

26De Mohrenschildt's file also contains a reference to an
occasion when he may have been involved in arranging a meeting between a Haitian bank officer
and a CIA or Department of Defense official. (165) The Department of Defense official, when
interviewed by the committee, stated that the meeting was arranged by Department of Defense officials and that de
Mohrenschildt's presence (in the company of his wife) was unanticipated. (166) The committee did not
regard this incident as evidence of a CIA relationship.

Page 219

of journalistic interests. The file further indicates that
Gaudet was a casual contact of the New Orleans Office
between 1955 and 1961 when, at various times, he furnished
fragmentary intelligence.(174)

Gaudet said he could not recall whether his trip to Mexico and other
Latin American countries in 1963 involved any intelligence-related activity. (175)
He was able to testify, however, that during that trip he
did not encounter Oswald, whom he had previously observed on occasion
at the New Orleans Trade Mart.(176)27 Gaudet stated that he
was unaware at the time his Mexican tourist card was issued that it
immediately preceded Oswald's, and he could not recall having seen
Oswald on that day.(177) Finally, Gaudet said he did not have any
information concerning the omission of his name from the list published in the
Warren Commission Report. (178)

Based upon this evidence, the committee did not find a basis for
concluding that Gaudet had contacted Oswald on behalf of the CIA.
Although there was a conflict between Gaudet's testimony and his
CIA file concerning the duration of his Agency contacts as well as
the performance of errands, there was no indication from his file or
testimony that Gaudet's cooperation involved clandestine activity.
Again, it should be stressed that the Domestic Contacts Division,
which was the Agency component that was in touch with Gaudet, was
not involved in clandestine operations.

(16) Alleged intelligence implications of Oswald's military service--
The committee reviewed Oswald's military records because
allegations that he had received intelligence training and had participated
in intelligence operations during his term of Marine service.(179)
Particular attention was given to the charges that Oswald's
early discharge from the corps was designed to serve as a cover for
an intelligence assignment and that his records reflected neither his
true security clearance nor a substantial period of service in Taiwan.
These allegations were considered relevant to the question of whether
Oswald had been performing intelligence assignments for military
intelligence, as well as to the issue of Oswald's possible association
with the CIA.

Oswald's Marine Corps records bear no indication that he ever received
any intelligence training or performed any intelligence assignments
during his term of service. As a Marine serving in Atsugi, Japan,
Oswald had a security clearance of confidential, but never received
a higher classification.(180) In his Warren Commission testimony,
John E. Donovan, the officer who had been in charge of Oswald's crew
at the El Toro Marine base in California, stated that all
personnel working in the radar center were required to have a minimum security
clearance of secret (181) Thus, the allegation has been made that the security
clearance of confidential in Oswald's records is inaccurate. The committee
however, reviewed files belonging to four enlisted men who had worked with
Oswald either in Japan or California and found that each of them had a
security clearance of confidential.(182)28

27Gaudet testified that he had never met Oswald, although
he had known of him prior to the assassination because Oswald had distributed literature near
his office. Gaudet stated that on one occasion he observed Oswald speaking to Guy Bannister on a
street corner.

28John E. Donovan, Oswald's commanding officer, did have a
security clearance of secret.

Page 220

It has been stated that Oswald claimed to have served in Taiwan. (183)
The committee's review of his military records, including unit
diaries that were not previously studied by the Warren Commission,
indicated, however, that he had not spent substantial time,
if any, in Taiwan. These records show that, except for a 3 1/2 month
period of service in the Philippines, Oswald served in Japan from September 12, 1957,
until November 2, 1958. (184) Although Department
of Defense records do indicate that MAG (Marine Air Group) 11, Oswald's
unit, was deployed to Taiwan on September 16, 1958, and remained
in that area until April 1959, an examination of the MAG 11
unit diaries indicated that Oswald was assigned at that time to a rear
echelon unit. (185) The term rear echelon does not, on its face, preclude
service with the main unit in Taiwan, but the Department of Defense
has specifically stated that "Oswald did not sail from Yokosuka, Japan
on September 16, 1958. He remained aboard NAS Atsugi as part of
the MAG-11 rear echelon." 29(186)

Oswald's records also reflect that on October 6, 1958, he was transferred
within MAG 11 to a Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron
subunit in Atsugi, Japan. (187) He reportedly spent the next week in
the Atsugi Station Hospital. (188) On November 2, 1958, Oswald left
Japan for duty in the United States. (189)

Accordingly, based upon a direct examination of Oswald's unit
diaries, as well as his own-military records, it does not appear that he
had spent any time in Taiwan. This finding is contrary to that of the
Warren Commission that Oswald arrived with his unit in Taiwan on
September 30, 1958, and remained there somewhat less than a
week,(190) but the Commission's analysis apparently was made without
access to the unit diaries of MAG 11.30

Moreover, even if Oswald, in fact, did make the trip with his unit
to Taiwan, it is clear that any such service there was not for a substantial
time. The unit arrived at Atsugi on September 30, 1958, and by
November 2, 1958, Oswald had left from Japan to complete his tour
of duty in the United States. (191)

Finally, with one exception, the circumstances surrounding Oswald's
rapid discharge from the military do not appear to have been unusual.
Oswald was obligated to serve on active duty until December 7, 1959,
but on August 17 he applied for a hardship discharge to support his
mother. About 2 weeks later the application was approved. (193)31

It appeared that Oswald's hardship discharge application was processed
so expeditiously because it was accompanied by all of the
necessary documentation. In response to a committee inquiry, the Department
of Defense stated that "... to a large extent, the time involved
a processing hardship discharge applications depended on how well
the individual member had prepared the documentation needed for

29This is contrary to statements attributed to Lieutenant Charles
R. Rhodes by Edward J. Epstein in his book, "The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald." Rhodes
maintains, according to Epstein, that Oswald did make the trip with the main unit but was sent
back to Japan on October 6, 1958.

30Similarly, a message sent on November 4, 1959, from the Chief
of Naval Operations concerning Oswald, which states that he had "served with Marine Air
Control Squadrons in Japan and Taiwan," (191) may have been issued without checking unit diaries which indicated that Oswald
had not been so deployed.

31By September 4, 1959, Oswald had been informed that he would
be discharged on September 11, 1959. (194) This explains why he was able to tell passport
officials on that day that he expected to depart the United States for Europe on September 21,
1959.

Page 221

consideration of his or her case."(195) A review of Oswald's case indicates
that his initial hardship discharge application was accompanied
by all of the requisite documentation. Oswald had met the, preliminary
requirements of having made a voluntary contribution to the hardship
dependent (his mother) and of applying for a dependent's quarters allotment 32
to alleviate the hardship. (196) Even though all of the supporting
affidavits for the quarters allotment had not been submitted at
the time that the hardship discharge application was filed, the endorsements
on the application indicated that the reviewing officers were
aware that both the requisite voluntary contribution and the application for a
quarters allotment had been made. (197) Moreover, that application
was accompanied by two letters and two affidavits attesting
to Marguerite Oswald's inability to support herself. (198)

Documents provided to the committee by the American Red Cross
indicate that Oswald had sought its assistance and therefore was
probably well advised on the requisite documentation to support his
claim.(199) Indeed, Red Cross officials interviewed Marguerite Oswald
and concluded that she "could not be considered employable from
an emotional standpoint."(200) The Fort Worth Red Cross office
indicated a quarters allotment was necessary for Marguerite Oswald,
rather than a hardship discharge for Lee, and assisted her in the preparation
of the necessary application documents.(201) Nevertheless,
Oswald informed the Red Cross office in El Toro, Calif., where he
was then stationed, that he desired to apply for a hardship discharge.
(202)

The unusual aspect of Oswald's discharge application was that,
technically, his requisite application for a quarters allowance for his
mother should have been disallowed because Marguerite's dependency
affidavit stated that Oswald had not contributed any money to her
during the preceding year. (203) Even so, the first officer to review
Oswald's application noted in his endorsement, dated August 19, 1959,
that "[a] genuine hardship exists in this case, and in my opinion approval
of the 'Q' [quarters] allotment will not sufficiently alleviate
this situation."(204) This quotation suggests the possibility that applications
for quarters allotments and hardship discharges are considered independently
of one another. In addition, six other officers endorsed Oswald's application.(205)
The committee was able to contact three of the seven endorsing officers (one had died); two had
no memory of the event,(206) and one could not recall any details. (207)
The committee considered their absence of memory to be indicative of
the Oswald, case having been handled in a routine manner.

Based on this evidence, the committee was not able to discern any
unusual discrepancies or features in Oswald's military record.

(17) Oswald's military intelligence file.--On November 22, 1963,
soon after the assassination, Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Jones, operations
officer of the U.S. Army's 112th Military Intelligence Group
Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Tex. contacted the FBI
offices in San Antonio and Dallas and gave those offices detailed information
concerning Oswald and A. J. Hidell, Oswald's alleged alias.
(208) This information suggested the existence of a military intelli-

32A dependent's quarters allotment is one that is jointly
paid to the dependent by the serviceman and the service.

Page 222

gence file on Oswald and raised the possibility that he had intelligence
associations of some kind. (209)

The committee's investigation revealed that military intelligence
officials had opened a file on Oswald because he was perceived as a
possible counterintelligence threat. Robert E. Jones testified before the
committee that in June 1963 he had been serving as operations officer
of the 112th Military Intelligence Group at Fort Sam Houston, Tex. 33
Under the group's control were seven regions encompassing five States:
Texas, Louisiana. Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Jones was
directly responsible for counterintelligence operations, background investigations,
domestic intelligence and any special operations in this
five-State area. (210) He believed that Oswald first came to his
attention in mid-1963 through information provided to the 112th MIG by
the New Orleans Police Department to the effect that Oswald had been
arrested there in connection with Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities. (211)
As a result of this information, the 112th Military Intelligence
Group took an interest in Oswald as a possible counterintelligence
threat.(212) It collected information from local agencies and the military
central records facility, and opened a file under the names Lee Harvey
Oswald and A.J. Hidell.(213) Placed in this file were documents and
newspaper articles on such topics as Oswald's defection to the Soviet
Union, his travels there, his marriage to a Russian national, his
return to the United States, and his pro-Cuba activities in New Orleans.

Jones related that on November 22, 1963, while in his quarters at
Fort Sam Houston, he heard about the assassination of President
Kennedy. (215) Returning immediately to his office, he contacted
MIG personnel in Dallas and instructed them to intensify their
liaisons with Federal, State and local agencies and to report back any
information obtained. Early that afternoon, he received a telephone call from
Dallas advising that an A.J. Hidell had been arrested or had come
to the attention of law enforcement authorities. Jones checked the
MIG indexes, which indicated that there was a file on Lee Harvey
Oswald, also known by the name A. J. Hidell.(216) Pulling the
file, he telephoned the local FBI office in San Antonio to notify the
FBI that he had some information. (217) He soon was in telephone
contact with the Dallas FBI office, to which he summarized the documents
in the file. He believed that one person with whom he spoke
was FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge J. Gordon Shanklin. He may have
talked with the Dallas FBI office more than one time that day. (218)

Jones testified that his last activity with regard to the Kennedy
assassination was to write an "after action" report that summarized
the actions he had taken, the people he had notified and the times of
notification. (219) In addition, Jones believed that this "after action"
report included information obtained from reports filed by the
military intelligence agents who performed liaison functions with the
Secret Service in Dallas on the day of the assassination. (220) This
"after action" report was then maintained in the Oswald file.(221)
Jones did not contact, nor was he contacted by, any other law enforce-

33Questions had been raised about the contents of some FBI
communications on November 22, 1963, that reflected information allegedly provided by military
intelligence. In his testimony, Jones clarified several points and corrected several errors in these communications.

Page 223

ment or intelligence agencies concerning information that he could provide
on Oswald. (222) To Jones' knowledge, neither the FBI nor any
law enforcement agency ever requested a copy of the military intelligence
file on Oswald. (223) To his surprise, neither the FBI, Secret
Service, CIA nor Warren Commission ever interviewed him. (224) No
one ever directed him to withhold any information; on the other hand,
he never came forward and offered anyone further information relevant
to the assassination investigation because he "felt that the information
that [he] had provided was sufficient and ...a matter of record. ..."(225)

The committee found Jones' testimony to be credible. His statements
concerning the contents of the Oswald file were consistent with FBI
communications that were generated as a result of the information
that he initially provided. Access to Oswald's military intelligence
file, which the Department of Defense never gave to the Warren Commission,
was not possible because the Department of Defense had
destroyed the file as part of a general program aimed at eliminating
all of its files pertaining to nonmilitary personnel. In response to a
committee inquiry, the Department of Defense gave the following
explanation for the file's destruction:

Dossier AB 652876, Oswald, Lee Harvey, was identified
for deletion from IRR (Intelligence Records and Reports)
holdings on Julian date 73060 (1 March 1973) as stamped on
the microfilmed dossier cover. It is not possible to determine
the actual date when physical destruction was accomplished,
but is credibly surmised that the destruction was accomplished
within a period not greater than 60 days following the
identification for deletion. Evidence such as the type of deletion
record available, the individual clerk involved in the
identification, and the projects in progress at the time of deletion,
all indicate the dossier deletion resulted from the implementation
of a Department of the Army, Adjutant General
letter dated 1 June 1971, subject: Acquisition of Information
Concerning Persons and Organizations not Affiliated with the
Department of Defense (DOD) (Incl 1). Basically, the letter
called for the elimination of files on non-DOD affiliated persons
and organizations.

It is not possible to determine who accomplished the
actual physical destruction of the dossier. The individual
identifying the dossier for deletion can be determined from
the clerk number appearing on the available deletion record.
The number indicates that Lyndall E. Harp was the identifying
clerk. Harp was an employee of the IRR from 1969 until
late 1973, at which time she transferred to the Defense Investigative Service,
Fort Holdbird, Md., where she is still a civil
service employee. The individual ordering the destruction or
deletion cannot be determined. However, available evidence
indicates that the dossier was identified for deletion under a
set of criteria applied by IRR clerks to all files. The basis for
these criteria were [sic] established in the 1 June 1971 letter.
There is no indication that the dossier was specifically identified
for review or deletion. All evidence shows that the file was

Page 224

reviewed as part of a generally applied program to eliminate
any dossier concerning persons not affiliated with DOD.

The exact material contained in the dossier cannot be
determined at this time. However, discussions with all available
persons who recall seeing the dossier reveal that it most
probably included: newspaper clippings relating to pro-Cuban
activities of Oswald, several Federal Bureau of Investigation
reports, and possibly some Army counterintelligence
reports. None of the persons indicated that they remember
any significant information in the dossier. It should be noted
here that the Army was not asked to investigate the assassination.
Consequently, any Army-derived information was
turned over to the appropriate civil authority.

At the time of the destruction of the Oswald dossier, IRR
was operating under the records disposal authority contained
in the DOD Memorandum to Secretaries of the Military Departments,
OASD(A), 9 February 1972, subject: Records
Disposal Authority (Incl 2). The memorandum forwards
National Archivist disposal criteria which is similar in nature
to the requirements outlined in the 1 June 1971 instructions.
It was not until 1975 that the Archivist changed the criteria
to ensure non-destruction of investigative records that may
be of historical value. (226)

Upon receipt of this information, the committee orally requested
the destruction order relating to the file on Oswald. In a letter dated
September 13, 1978, the General Counsel of the Department of the
Army replied that no such order existed:

Army regulations do not require any type of specific order
before intelligence files can be destroyed, and none was prepared
in connection with the destruction of the Oswald file.
As a rule, investigative information on persons not directly
affiliated with the Defense Department can be retained in
Army files only for short periods of time and in carefully
regulated circumstances. The Oswald file was destroyed routinely
in accordance with normal files management procedures,
as are thousands of intelligence files annually.(227)

The committee found this "routine" destruction of the Oswald file
extremely troublesome, especially when viewed in light of the Department of Defense's
failure to make this file available to the Warren
Commission. Despite the credibility of Jones' testimony, without access
to this file, the question of Oswald's possible affiliation with military
intelligence could not be fully resolved.

(18) The Oswald photograph in Office of Naval Intelligence files.--
The Office of Naval Intelligence's (ONI) Oswald file contained a
photograph of Oswald, taken at the approximate time of his Marine
Corps induction. It was contained in an envelope that had on it the
language "REC'D 14 November 1963" and "CIA 77978." (228) These
markings raised the possibility that Oswald had been in some way associated
with the CIA.

In response to it committee inquiry, the Department of Defense
stated that the photograph had been obtained by ONI as a result of

Page 225

an October 4, 1963 CIA request for two copies of the most recent photographs
of Oswald so that an attempt could be made to verify his reported
presence in Mexico City. The requested copies, however, were
not made available to the CIA until after the President's assassination.34
Because of the absence of documentation, no explanation could
be given for how or when the Office of Naval Intelligence received
this particular photograph of Oswald. (229)

The committee's review of CIA cable traffic confirmed that cable
No. 77978, dated October 24, 1963, was in fact a request for two copies
of the Department of the Navy's most recent photograph of Lee Henry [sic]
Oswald. Moreover, review of other cable traffic corroborated the
Agency's desire to determine whether Lee Harvey Oswald
had, in fact, been in Mexico City. (230)

The committee concluded, therefore, that the ONI photograph of
Oswald bearing a reference to the CIA, was not evidence that Oswald
was a CIA agent. Again, however, the destruction of the military
file on Oswald prevented the committee from resolving the question of
Oswald's possible affiliation with military intelligence.

(19) Oswald in Mexico City.--The committee also considered
whether Oswald's activities in Mexico City in the fall of 1963 were
indicative of a relationship between him and the CIA. This aspect of
the committee's investigation involved a complete review both of
alleged Oswald associates and of various CIA operations outside of the
United States. (231)

The committee found no evidence of any relationship between
Oswald and the CIA. Moreover, the Agency's investigative efforts
prior to the assassination regarding Oswald's presence in Mexico City
served to confirm the absence of any relationship with him. Specifically,
when apprised of his possible presence in Mexico City, the
Agency both initiated internal inquiries concerning his background
and, once informed of his Soviet experience, notified other potentially
interested Federal agencies of his possible contact with the Soviet
Embassy in Mexico City. (232)

Conclusion

Based on the committee's entire investigation, it concluded that the
Secret Service, FBI and CIA were not involved in the assassination.
The committee concluded that it is probable that the President was
assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Nothing in the committee's
investigation pointed to official involvement in that conspiracy. While
the committee frankly acknowledged that its investigation was not
able to identify the members of the conspiracy besides Oswald, or
the extent of the conspiracy, the committee believed that it did not
include the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or Central
Intelligence Agency.

34As noted, the military file on Oswald, presumably including
the ONI photograph, was destroyed by the Department of Defense.

Bibliographic note: Web version based on the Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC: United States Government Printing
Office, 1979. 1 volume, 686 pages. The formatting of this Web version may differ from the
original.